Catboys
by Phantom-Akiko
Summary: Conan and Kaito got kidnapped by mad scientists. After they escape, they notice weird things happening with them.
1. Yet another change!

**Catboys**

**Chapter One:** Yet another change!

by **Phantom-Akiko** and **Vampire-KIDDO**

thanks to **hallow777** for beta-reading

Conan and Kaito got kidnapped by mad scientists. After they escape, they notice weird thing happening with them.

* * *

He was on his way home from school when Kaito suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and moments later, his face met the ground. He was aware that someone picked him up, but then his vision went black and he lost consciousness.  
The man looked pleased at the unconsciousness boy in the back of the van, after he put said boy in the van. He was lucky that the street was this empty and that the boy hadn't paid any attention either, or it could have become difficult. He sat down in the passenger seat and nodded shortly to the driver. Moments later, the van was nowhere to be seen in the street and on its way to their secret laboratory in the woods near Tokyo.

-

Conan was just on his way back to the Agency when he felt suddenly a pain in his neck and fell to the ground. He lost consciousness while he felt someone picking him up.  
A man carried him into another van and drove him to the same laboratory where Kaito was.

-

When Kaito regained consciousness, he was strapped to some kind of operating table. He blinked hazily up at the very white ceiling and deducted that they had given him some kind of sedative. That could be the only reason, why he was still so calm about everything and didn't really want to move at all. A few men in white lab coats came into his line of vision and talked a few sentences while looking at him. They did something with his hand and put a mask on his face. He realized that it was some sort of tranquilizer, but was once again clouded in darkness after that.

-

The same happened to Conan. He woke up and blinked in confusion because he noticed that he was strapped on some kind of operation table and couldn't really move. First he thought it was someone from the Black Organization but before he could continue thinking about it, some men in white lab coats appeared and also put something on his mouth and he blacked out again. He also didn't know that his rival, Kaitou Kid, was right in the next room.

-

The third time Kaito woke up, he was more aware of his surroundings, which suggested that they hadn't had him under anymore drugs. He felt that something was off, but couldn't put his finger on what it was. He also didn't notice any differences. What he noticed was, that he was still bound to the bed, but not one person was currently with him. Getting out of restrains like that was already too easy for him, but the dear doctors wouldn't have any idea, that they had kidnapped an escape artist. He briefly wondered if he had some letter pinned to his back, saying 'I'm good to try some experiments on, please kidnap me.' He really wondered what they did with him after he blacked out the second time.

He freed himself easily enough and got out of the bed. The first thing that he noticed was that he had somehow more balance, even when he was still slightly disoriented. What annoyed him was that he was in the typical hospital gown, that was to say...very open. He would have to get something better quickly. He slipped out of the room and into a long hallway with a lot of doors. He was really curious of what was in there, but the need for clothes and freedom was larger. He opened one of the many windows in the hallway and noticed the little space he had to put his toes onto before he would have a free fall from two stories up. As he was outside of the window, he looked into the window below him and noticed quite a few of the white coats hanging from clothes racks. Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones in the room. There was a small group of people and it looked as if one person has teaching them something about human anatomy. 'How weird...', he thought. 'I hope they didn't do anything weird to me.' He positioned himself so that they wouldn't be able to see him and let himself into the room. He quickly changed his clothes and was happy to wear anything at all.

One of the persons in the room must have noticed something moving, because they all stood up pretty quickly. Without much thinking other than 'Shit, shit, shit! Get away, get away, get away!', Kaito went straight back to the window and jumped out of it, forgetting he was still one story up off the ground, but he just wanted to get the hell away from there. He landed in a smooth crouch on the ground, completely unharmed and ready to flee. Which he did immediately without giving much thought about what had just happened. He could hear voices in the distance, but he was already too far away from them to have any chance of catching up on him.

-

When Conan finally woke up again he felt better than the second time he woke up. He felt a little odd but didn't really notice any difference besides that and decided to tried try and figure out a way to get out of there. While he was looking around he noticed that there was no one else in here, he also wondered what exactly they did to him and who it was. If it was the BO they probably would have killed him already so he asked himself who else it could be. But right now he just wanted to get away from this place.

Somehow Conan managed to get free and when he stood up he also felt more balanced. But now he just wanted to get outta there and after noticing that all doors were locked from inside he tried to use the ventilation shaft. He got forward pretty fast and silently and no one noticed any sounds. He was kinda curious about that but now he searched for his clothes and found them after a while. He opened the shaft and jumped out and wondered that he landed so smooth. 'Think about that later...' He thought and quickly changed into his own clothes. After that he looked around. He was really curious about what kind of building this was but he couldn't do anything alone so he thought about escaping first. 'I'll find out more about that building later...' and got back in the ventilation shaft to look for an exit or something like that.

After a little while he saw some light at the end of the shaft and was glad to get out of there. But when he opened it he noticed that he's really high up, maybe first or second floor. "Geez..it's impossible to get safely out with being this high up..." he whispered quietly to himself and sighed. Just when he wanted to turn around and search for another exit he suddenly heard some loud noise in the shaft and got so shocked that he accidentally fell out. He shut his eyes and realized he would hit the hard ground but when he opened them he already was on the ground without any injuries at all. He blinked, because when he looked up he could see the vent opening far above his head, he was pretty confused and shocked. But after he heard some people talking he just skipped thinking about it and ran away and looked for the next bus stop or something, because he still didn't know where he was exactly.

-

When Kaito reached to the first few houses, he recognized his surroundings and was happy, that he had only to take a few shortcuts and he would be home. After what felt like a little eternity, he was home again and changed into his own clothes. Now that he had time to think, he wondered just what they had done to him. When his mother came home from work, she fuzzed over him and told him how worried she was, that he hadn't come home that last day at all. Telling the truth was a little awkward, so he told her that he was doing some research with Jii. He did have a heist coming up in the next few days. Her look told him that she didn't believe him one bit, but she sighed and let him go. He finally realized that he was tired, so he went to bed quite early.

-

After a while, Conan found out that he wasn't that far away from Beika and got back to the agency. Where Ran yelled at him, because she was really worried, but he just told her that he was playing at Agasa-hakase's house and forgot the time. She finally accepted it and he could go to bed...he was really tired. But still he wondered who those guys were and what they did to him.

After a while he just fell asleep and the next morning Ran had a little trouble waking him up because this morning he was more than just tired. But in the end he had to get up and get ready for school. While he was eating breakfast and went to school he yawned a lot, and at school he almost fell asleep during the lessons. During the day he often felt pretty tired but he got used to it after a while. At the end of the day they had sports and had to do some athletics. Conan was more a fan of soccer but when it was his turn he wondered since when he could move that fast and smoothly. His classmates were almost clapping when he did all exercises perfectly. But he was happy when the sports lesson was over and school ended soon, too. But he was still a little curious about what had happened.

-

The next day at school, Kaito was greeted by a worried, yet furious Aoko Nakamori. Of course, that was because he had been absent that last day without any excuse. So one part of the mop wielding girl was worried about her best friend's health and the other part was highly annoyed, that he most likely just skipped school that day. When the magician flipped her skirt, the first reason was quickly forgotten and the wild chase began once again. Kaito dodged her mop of doom several times quite easily and seemed to fly over the several heads of their schoolmates. Not that this act was so strange coming from him, but the easiness of these moves alone brought him back enough to the last day, that Aoko had the chance of hitting him with the cleaning utensil onto his head. Which was quite painful by the way.

As his revenge, he colored her hair blue and Hakuba's green. He found out long ago that changing the witch's hair was either painfully embarrassing or embarrassingly painful. He didn't like both of the possibilities, so he let her off the hook. Now, he got chased by the detective as well, which was also fun. The detective made the funniest faces when he was pissed off. Having enough of his antics, Aoko reached for her ultimate weapon: The fish she bought before school for the meal her father wanted to prepare this afternoon. It had the desired effect. The magician yelped and took cover in one of the corners in the classroom, on the ceiling. What was new, however, were the ears, that were visible on his head and the tail which twitched around at his back. He noticed it after his two friends, gave another yelp and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Hakuba looked disbelieving at the spot where his rival had been moments ago. "What the...?", he asked the world in general, before deciding that this was definitely not his day and he just walked back to his seat ignoring what had just happened.

On one of the rooftops near the school, a distressed Kaito Kuroba was sitting at one of the edges, inspecting his new tail. He also noticed how his ears would move in one direction or another, which was quite fun and good for his hearing, but quite unnerving after a while. His tail twitched in agreement. He wondered just what deity he had pissed off to deserve something like this. Now he knew just what those people did to him, but wasn't sure if he wanted to know just 'how' they did it. 'I guess it's probably better that I don't know.' he decided. After a while, he stood up and went home while running across the rooftops. Not that he did it as the Kid often enough, but now that the ears and the tail were there, he really felt the balance of a cat and it would be a lie to say that he didn't enjoy it.

He soon reached home and the first thing he did was look into the mirror in his bathroom. He really had two black cat ears on his head. Seeing this, he sighed, went to his room and let himself drop on the bed. After the excitement vanished however, he felt the ears and the tail disappearing. 'Huh? So they will not be there the whole time...that's good at least..', he thought relieved. 'I just wonder why they came out earlier?'

-

After a while Conan was finally home and really hungry. He put his school bag down somewhere and went to the kitchen and wondered what Ran was cooking because it smelled really good. He looked around the corner in the kitchen and saw how Ran was cooking some fish. He got more hungry and stared at the fish and didn't notice the fact that he had suddenly cat-ears and also a tail. Ran noticed Conan and blushed a little. "Aww, Conan-kun! What a cute costume!", she said smiling. "Huh? Costume?", he said surprised and noticed that he had a tail and blinked. 'What the ...!?', was all he could think while staring at his tail until he remembered that Ran was still there and looked at her. "Ah, yes, it's for a party.", he said with a little smile, "I still have some homework so...", he said quickly and ran off to the bathroom.

Conan locked the bathroom door and hope that Ran wouldn't ask why. He looked at the tail again and got a little more shocked when he could move it and also noticed that something was wrong with his ears because they felt quite fuzzy. 'Oh.. great...', he thought when he looked into the mirror and saw how his ears moved and he couldn't control it. Conan sat down and while he looked at his tail twitching he was thinking what exactly happened. 'So now I'm not only a shrunken High School-Detective.. I have also a tail and big cat ears...', he thought and sighed. 'Ran thought this is a costume but if I keep showing up like that with moving tail and ears she'll figure out that they're real...', he was thinking and while he was considering how it'll disappear he also noticed that his hearing was better, even though... he didn't really wanted to hear Kogoro's singing to Yoko Okino. When Ran knocked at the door and asked if everything's okay, he looked up to the door and noticed that the ears and the tail disappeared. 'So they disappear after a while...', he thought and unlocked the door and smiled to Ran. "Yes, everything's okay."

"Hm.. okay, then come on.", she said smiling and went back to the kitchen, "Lunch will be ready in 5 minutes. I made fish.", she said and while he already smelt it again his ears popped out again just when she said fish. He hid his ears with his hands and knew why they came out before. After a short while he tried to relax himself a little and the ears disappeared again, and for him it was probably the best idea to just pass the lunch but somehow he really wanted to eat some fish. "Uhm.. Ran-neechan? Can I eat in my room? I have still a lot of homework...", he said with an innocent smile and while Ran watched at him she nodded with a sighed and gave him some food on a plate. "Yes, you can. But bring the dishes back when you're done.", she said. "Thanks a lot Ran-neechan!", she said and went in his room with the food and while he really enjoyed eating the fish his ears popped out again and also his tail was twitching around.

Conan sweat-dropped a little when he saw how his tail was twitching while he was enjoying the fish. 'I guess that's even weirder than being shrunk...', he thought and finished eating, his tail and the ears disappeared again. He brought the dishes back and searched for Ran. "Thanks again for letting me eat in my room.", he said smiling. 'I hope I won't have to do this to often… but it's probably only with fish... at breakfast everything was normal...', he thought.

"No problem.", Ran said and smiled. "Glad that you like the food.". Conan was nodding with a kind smile. "Well, I'm going upstairs and do the rest of my homework, okay?", he said and was already going to the door. "Okay, have fun.", she called after him and giggled shortly, before she went back to cleaning the dishes.

-

Kaito pondered quite a while about the reason they popped out back then, but came to no real conclusion. 'Was it because of the f-...scaly thing?', he wondered. Had to be, right? So, he had to avoid them. It's not like he already did that as much as he could. Maybe he could get Aoko and his mom to stop scaring him with them like this. As if approving his new theory, the doorbell rang and startled him. He went down and saw a worried Aoko in front of him. "Ne...are you okay?", she asked him and looked at his head and behind him for any signs of strange ears and tail. When she wasn't able to find anything, she was even more confused.

"Why don't you just come in?", he offered and let her in his house. She brought his school bag with her and put it on the kitchen table. They sat around the table in silence until Aoko searched for his cat-ears again. "Say, Kaito...what exactly was that at school?", she wondered and pointed a finger at his head. He sighed and wondered for a brief second if he could talk his way out of this, but guessed he couldn't. The ears might pop out again, if she was trying to scare him with the scaly evil things again. "Well, I was at some sort of laboratory, yesterday. They kidnapped me off the street and did something strange with me. That was the reason I wasn't at school. I just noticed what it was in school, like you did as well. Still don't know what it is exactly, but the things you were looking for just now did exist.", he explained and waited for her response. She pondered over what he said and suddenly, there was a smug smile on her lips. He inched away from her with a bad feeling and before he could get further away from the evil girl, she held the same fish in front of his face again. He yelped and did a jump backwards off of the chair he was sitting in, but landing on all fours with the ears and tail out again. The fish was put hastily away and Aoko hurried to him, pulling at his ears and feeling them. "Whaaa~ kawaii!", she squealed, while he was too perplexed to do anything else than gape at her.

Aoko was still touching his ears the whole time and totally loved them. "Aww, they're so soft. Never imagined that you could be so cute~!", she said smiling. She kept staring at them and giggled when they moved. "Will they always pop out when I scare you with some fish?", she said with a grin on her face.

Kaito gulped down the fear and took a look at her. She really didn't seem to mind them, in fact, she seemed to really like them, which seemed weird to him. 'But then again this whole day has been weird.', he thought. "I dunno...they did two times, but...Aoko?", he asked hesitantly. "If you want them to pop out...can we try to find a better method, please?"

"Hm?". She looked at him and giggled. "Hm... if you're nice to me.", she said with a grin. "What else could I do...", she said while she looked thoughtful up. "Ah, maybe I can pat you like a cat!", she said smiling and patted him already and giggled. He just looked so cute.

He sweat dropped and couldn't really do anything against it. When she brushed against his ears, a pleasant shudder ran along his spine and he moaned a little, closed his eyes and leaned forward without thinking into her hand. When she saw that she giggled a little and kept patting.

"Kawaii~", she said quietly, watching him. "Right now you really just look like a big cat, you know Kaito?", she said and grinned at him.

He muttered something incomprehensible, already too far away to really notice what she was saying. His head slowly dropped into her lap and he curled up against her just like a cat would do.

She smiled and giggled when she saw how much he enjoyed it. After a while she stopped and smiled. "And how do they disappear again?", she asked and was still touching his ears.

It took a while for the question to register, but when it did, he snapped out of his reverie and bolted upright again, face flushed in a bright red. "I-I think when I relax again and calm down...but I am not sure."

She giggled again when she saw his red face. "I see~ like when you see fish and get panic and the ears pop out and when you calm down from that again they're disappearing?", she asked with a little grin.

He shrugged, the blush in his face fading. "I guess so...what are you aiming at?", he asked uneasily, his tail twitching in irritation.

She looked at his tail and giggled. "Nothing special~", she said in an innocent voice which seemed rather suspicious.

"Uh huh...", he said disbelieving, itching further away from her. "Since it's nothing special you can just refrain from doing whatever evil plan is forming in your head right now.", he insisted, but had little hope.

"I don't know what you're talking about~", she said innocently and looked at him again. "Aww, you just look like a big kitty~", she said again and touched his ears.

He rolled his eyes and sighed. A little of the feeling from earlier returned and he was definitely not going into that mood again.

She looked around and then to Kaito. "Does your mom know about this?", she asked and looked at the tail again.

He shook his head. "Not yet, no...", he said and sighed. He didn't really look forward to that.

"But you're gonna tell her, right? I mean.. it'd be hard to hide something like that from her...", she said and watched to his tail and the ears.

"I guess I have to, huh?", he asked, grinning slightly.

She nodded and grinned a little. "But you won't go out at night and chase mice, will you?", she asked and giggled a little. "What about Hakuba-kun and Akako-chan?", she asked curiously.

He shook his head. "No, definitely not." He shuddered at the thought alone. "And I'm pretty sure, that Koizumi has already some guess...she's weird like that.", he said and sighed. "And it would probably break Hakuba's mind anyway. But if they ask, I tell them, alright?"

"Hm... okay, if you think so", she said an smiled again. "I'll try to keep the fish away from you for awhile.. But only if you're nice to me."

He glared at her, but he knew that he really didn't have a choice right now. And he didn't like it.

She grinned devilishly and stood up again. "Well, I guess my dad is already wondering where I am. I promised I would cook dinner tonight.", she said and looked at her watch. "See you tomorrow!", she said smiling and giggled a little while she patting him once more.

He snarled a little, but brought her to the door anyway. "See you tomorrow!", he said and was happy, when his ears and tail finally disappeared shortly after she left.

-

After that, Conan thought about what he could do and decided to go to Agasa's place. "I'm going to Agasa-hakase's!", he said and went down the stairs. After a short while he already was there and rang the bell of his house.

The professor opened the door and wasn't much surprised to find the shrunken detective in front of his door. "Oh, Shinichi! Nice that you dropped by. I have a new game you might want to test with the others."

"Sorry, but right now I don't have time for this...", he said and sighed. "Yesterday I got kidnapped and since then really weird stuff is happening...", he explained. "Can I come in?", he asked because he didn't want to explain everything in front of the house.

The professor raised his eyebrows and stepped aside to let him in. He wondered just what this weird stuff could be.

Conan went in and looked to the professor. After he closed the door he continued explaining. "Well... yesterday some kind of scientist I guess kidnapped me and while I was out they did something to me. After a while I woke up and could escape from there and when I was at the agency everything was fine, except the fact that I was really tired. But then strange stuff happened. I can hear better and move more smoothly. And today when I got home after school Ran cooked some fish and just because I smelled it I got cat ears and even a tail!"

The professor looked dumb at him, not believing what the teenager just told him. "Now, come on, Shinichi...", he said. "This is not the time for jokes and on top of that, the shrinking thing was bad enough."

The boy looked at him and muttered. "I'm telling the truth, really!", he said a little annoyed because the Professor didn't believe him. 'Well… it really sounds like some crazy story that would never happen...', he thought, but it was true. "Fine, I'll show you then!", he said and went into the kitchen.

Curious, he followed Conan into the kitchen and wondered what he was up to now. He guessed he wanted to find the fish he was just talking about.

He went to the fridge to search for some fish. Just when he spotted some and took it, his ears appeared again, just like the tail. He noticed that immediately and put the fish back and looked to the professor. "Do you believe me now?"

He looked up to the professor and waited for his reaction. The professor stared at him. "That...that...", he spluttered before falling silent and observing the boy. "I guess I need some coffee...or tea. Tea would be better, yeah.", he said, suddenly turning around and searching for his teapot. After he brewed the tea, he sat down in the kitchen chair and stared at Conan again, processing just what he was seeing. He sighed and gave in. "Alright, I don't know how they did that, but I guess this is not something, that can be overcome easily."

Conan sighed in relief. "Finally...", he muttered and noticed the look of the professor, who was probably still staring at his ears or the tail, that was twitching behind him. "I guess you don't know what to do about this, right?", he said and looked at him again.

The professor shook his head. "Maybe if I knew how they did that, but otherwise...no, I don't think so.", he said and looked at him again. "You really do have the strangest things happen to you, you know that Kudo?", came a young female voice from the door. "Should I be glad that this time, I'm definitely not responsible for it?", Ai Haibara asked and watched the twitching of his tail in amusement.

He sighed, but he knew that the answer was something like that. When he heard Ai he looked at her and sweat-dropped. "It's not like I want these things to happen to me.", he said a little annoyed, still twitching his tail. "I'm happy that you don't have to do anything with this...", he said, "but you probably don't know anything about this either, right?", he said while raising his eyebrow.

She raised her eyebrows and looked at his tail again. "No, but I can try to find some things out. Not that I have much hope...", she trailed off.

"Great...", he sighed. He wondered why this experimenting stuff is always happening to him. Wasn't it already enough to get shrunk? "I think I have to tell Ran about this... She'll notice it soon anyways..", he said, moving his tail more slowly while he was thinking.

She raised her eyebrows shortly and observed him for a while. "It's not like your or her life depends on it, right? Most likely anyway. So it would be better like that. Are you going to tell her father as well?"

He nodded and looked in her direction. "I'm not sure... I'll tell Ran first and ask her if it'd be better if he knows or not..", he said and the ears and the tail disappeared again. "Hm.. i wonder if this happens only when I get near fish...", , he asked himself.

"Well, that's your choice.", she told him and shrugged her shoulders. "I can't tell...but I guess you will find soon enough.", she asked with a devilish smile and disappeared from the door to go back into her lab.

"Probably...", he said and looked at her. 'Even though it's not her fault she's acting like she knows better...', he thought and sighed, 'Scary.'. He looked to the professor again and also went to the door.

"Well… I think it's the best if I'll tell her soon as possible." The professor looked at him again and nodded. "I guess that's better, Shinichi. Good luck!", he smiled faintly.

"Thanks hakase..", he said not very happy, "See ya.", and he went off back to the agency. When he was back he first checked if Kogoro was around but it seemed like he was off to see a client.


	2. New Discoveries

**Catboys**

**Chapter Two:** New Discoveries

by **Phantom-Akiko** and **Vampire-KIDDO**

thanks to **hallow777** for beta-reading

also thanks a lot to my reviewers^^

**-Hyper4EVER-** - Thanks :D It took a little longer than expected, also due to my sudden illness...that's why the third chapter might take a little longer as well.

**StargateNerd - **No? Well, I have read other stories about DC/MK, where someone becomes part or totally cat...I liked them a lot xD

**hallow777 **- It's okay^^° As you've read above, I wasn't quite healthy to upload it anyway...yeah, we had MUCH fun writing that scene x3 (- relates to this chapter)

* * *

Aoko was still giggling on her way home when she thought about the ears and tail.

Kaito went up to his room after she left and just dropped back onto his bed again, wanting to ignore the whole world for today. He knew however, that his mother needed to know and he guessed that she would have a similar reaction. Well, she would be worried, but it was pretty much likely that she found him overly cute as well. He sighed in desperation and decided to sleep for the few hours he still had till his peace was ruined.

His Mum came home after a while and went into the kitchen to cook dinner. She wondered if Kaito was at home or went somewhere.

So, just when he had been asleep for a while, his sensible nose picked up a familiar scent and he woke up with a start. He groaned as his ears and tail popped out yet again at the scent of cooked fish and he slumped back into his pillow. "Can't they just let me alooooone...?", he whined in frustration, burying his face into his soft pillow.

After the dinner was ready his Mum went upstairs and knocked at Kaito's room. "Kaito? Dinner is ready!" She said. She was pretty sure he was home, because she saw his shoes in front of the door.

"I'm not hungry!", he shouted to the door. "I won't eat the stupid f-fish anyway!", he added, while his ears were down and flat against his head.

She knew that Kaito didn't like fish but she wondered how he knew that she made some. "C'mon, can't you at least try it, hm?", she asked nicely and came in. But when she saw the tail and the ears she blinked."K-Kaito... Why do you have...", she asked while staring at the tail and ears.

He looked irritated at her and sighed. "Well...to be honest...I wasn't at Jii's yesterday. I was kinda kidnapped and these crazy scientists did something weird with me and now...well, you see. They seem to pop out, when I see or smell fish. But they will go away when I calm down again. Also, a few of my senses got better, so I could smell the reeking fish all the way up here.", he finished his explanation and waited for her reaction.

At first she looked very surprised at her son but also worried. "Are you really okay?", she asked, went to his bed and touched carefully the ears and blinked again and also took one more look at his tail.

"Yeah, I'm fine, don't worry.", he assured her. "Besides having the habit of growing ears and a tail whenever I see or smell fish, I'm really okay.", he said and sighed.

She nodded, still a little worried, but smiled anyway."Well... but it looks really cute, you know?", she said and giggled.

He groaned. "Aoko said that as well...", he murmured, trying to hide the slight blush on his cheeks.

"Oh, so Aoko-chan also knows about this?", she asked curious.

He nodded. "Yeah, just after school, she came over and held a fish in front of my face…", he complained.

"But you still won't eat the fish I cooked, right?", she wondered.

"No, I definitely won't eat those things."

"Hm, that's a shame. So, what else could I cook you for dinner?", she asked.

He sighed. "Anything else other than that, please...", he whined.

She blinked at first but I had to giggle after all. "Is that so. Well, then I'm gonna make you some curry, okay?", she said.

He nodded shortly. "That would be nice.", he said and smiled slightly.

She went back to the door. "I'm glad that everything is okay with you..", she said relieved.

"Ehm...okay.", he said and grinned a little embarrassed. She smiled and left his room and went back into the kitchen where she made some curry for him.

Still giggling a little when she thought about the ears and tail.

-

When he got back the first thing he did was check if Kogoro was around but it seemed like he was off to see a client.

A curious Ran Mouri stuck her head out of her room. "Oh, Conan-kun! You're back already?", she asked and smiled sweetly.

"Hm?". He turned around and saw Ran. "Eh, yeah.", he said and smiled innocently. "Uhm.. Ran-neechan? Yesterday when I was disappeared all day long I wasn't really at the professors place.", he explained.

A look of worry flickered through her face and she slowly went to him and crouched down in front of him. "Conan-kun...", she said slightly alarmed. "You know you shouldn't lie. But where exactly where you then?", she asked him.

He nodded silently. "I was kidnapped... probably by some scientist from a lab or something like that. Most of the time I was unconscious and when I woke up I managed to escape and get back here. But they did something weird to me even though I don't really know what.", he explained and sighed. "And now, every time I get near fish I get cat ears and a tail.. That's why I didn't eat with you, because those ears and tail already appeared before.", and finished the explanation and looked at her and waited for her reaction.

Her eyebrows went up to her hairline and she looked horrified at him. "Oh my god, Conan-kun! Are you really okay?", she asked him immediately.

Conan was a little surprised that Ran believed him and nodded. "Yes, I'm okay, really!", he told her and smiled a little. "It's just a little weird to have a tail and cat ears...", he added in a lower voice.

"Oh, yeah...", she agreed and nodded. "Can there be something done about that?", she wondered.

He shook his head and sighed. "I already asked the professor but he didn't know what to do either.", he explained. "Well.. it's not that bad...They just appear when I get near fish and disappear after a while, so.."

She nodded absently. "So, that wasn't a costume back then?", she asked him and looked to the spot on his head where the ears had been earlier that day.

"Uhm… no, it was real.", he said a little embarrassed. Just then he smelt the same smell from lunch and blinked. The ears and his tail popped out again and he looked at Ran. "Ne, Ran-neechan... you heated the rest of lunch up, didn't you?"

She twitched shortly when the ears and the tail suddenly popped out and she blushed a little, nodding. "Shortly after you left for the professor, 'tousan had a client here and went to his house. He should be back soon, so I reheated the leftovers from lunch...do you want some?", she asked him.

He looked at her while she explained and twitched his tail. "It does smell really good~", he said and still smiled a little embarrassed. He did like fish before but now he really loves the smell of fish.

She giggled a little, stood up and went to get him some of the food. When she came back, she had a plateful of fish for him and handed it to him. "Itadaki-masu!", she told him, grinning a little.

He looked at her curiously and his ears stood up straight. He sat down at the table and twitched his tail a little more when he saw the fish. "Thanks Ran-neechan!", he said happily and started eating the fish, and really enjoyed it.

She giggled again at his behavior and sat next to him and just watched him eating.

He ate and remembered something and looked at Ran. "What about Ojii-san? Should he know or not?", he asked while eating another piece of the fish.

She considered that question for a while. "Well...hard to say...", she said absentminded. "We could hide it from him of course, but would we need to?", she wondered to herself. She then smiled a little apologizing. "But I don't think he would be very easy with it, considering that 'kaasan has a cat as a pet as well..."

"Hm...", he nodded and thought about it. "Well, I can try to hide from him and if he finds out I'll just tell him what happened.", he said and looked at Ran after he finished eating the fish.

Ran nodded smiling. "Yes, I can help you there as well, if he'll decide to do something he really shouldn't do.", she said firmly and balled her one hand into a first, grinning evilly. He looked and her and smiled a little.

"But don't hurt him because of me, okay?", he asked in a little nervous voice.

She nodded again. "It's okay, I promise that. But only if he doesn't hurt you first. You know him...", she said and sweat dropped a little.

And after the smell of the fish and also the fish itself disappeared the ears and the tail were gone too.

She was a little surprised, when ears and tail suddenly just vanished, but smiled sweetly after that. 'Yeah, I know that he doesn't like kids… especially me..', he thought.

"Okay.", he said smiling and when he noticed that the ears and the tail disappeared he sighed relieved. "Well, I'm pretty tired… Good night Ran-neechan! And thanks again!", he said standing up.

"Good night, Conan-kun. Sleep well!", she said and started to clean his dish.

He smiled and went upstairs. After he changed clothes and got ready for bed he went to sleep, even though he thought about a lot of stuff before.

After he went to sleep, Kogoro finally came home and complained about the fact that the client took too much of his time, so that he missed a very important tv show with Yoko Okino. Ran just sighed, made him his food and went to her own room as well.

-

After a while, Kaito went downstairs, when he smelled the spicy smell of curry. He saw how his mother was still busy with cooking and decided to help her with the dishes. He was glad, that his ears had disappeared shortly after his mother left his room earlier.

She was so busy with cooking that she only noticed Kaito when he started helping her with the dishes. She also noticed that the ears and tail disappeared and smiled. When the dinner was ready she set the table with the food.

He was done fast and sat down in front of the steaming food. He started eating and Kaito was glad that he could eat something different than fish.

She looked at him eating and smiled and after she sat down, she also began eating.

He was finished after a while and helped her with the dishes again, when they both finished. After that, he went upstairs again to do his homework. He knew that he also had to prepare for the heist in a few days. He was just glad, that he didn't come in contact with fish on heist very often. It did happen, however and he wasn't very fond of it.

She put the dishes back while Kaito went upstairs again and was feeling tired so she went to sleep after she cleaned the house up a bit. After finishing his homework, he went out and to the next bus stop to get to Jii. He went to his apartment and knocked on the door, waiting to be let in.

Jii wondered who this could be and smiled when he saw Kaito. "Oh, Kaito-bocchama!", he said and stepped aside so he could come in. "I'm surprised that you're visiting me at this time.", he told him. He did come at this time before but mostly close before his next heist and the next was in a few days.

Kaito nodded and made his way into Jii's living room, where he sat down. "I wanted to start a little earlier, since it's possible, that I wont have as much time as I thought I would have...", he said and shrugged. "A few things happened and I'm not sure, if there will be things that get in the way of my planning."

He followed him into the living room and looked at the young master. "A few things?", Jii asked him, "What happened?", he asked a little worried.

Kaito hesitated a little. "I'm not sure if you'd believe me without proof, but I'm really not fond of proving it, you know?" He explained the whole thing to Jii as well plus what he learned from his mother's food cooking.

After Kaito finished explaining everything Jii understood why he said that it's hard to believe. After a while of silence, Jii said,"Well… that sounds really unbelievable…", he said and looked at the young master, "but I don't think you'd imagine all this, so… I believe you."

He breathed a sigh of relief, for he didn't have to face the evil fish. "That's good. You see...Aoko and mum already know about it and took great delight in it...", he said and smiled a little embarrassed. "I'm not sure, if Aoko won't be trying something in the next few days...", he said and sighed.

"Hm... I see..", he said, while he nodded. "Well...the only thing you can do is to avoid fish, right?", he said after a while thinking.

He laughed slightly. "As if I'm not already trying that, Jii...the problem is just, that now that Aoko knows they will pop out when I'm confronted with these things, she might want to confront me even more with them, just to make them pop out.", he said and sighed again.

"That's true..", he said and thought about it again. "And there is really no way that they won't pop out?", he asked and looked at him.

"Not sure...they did every time until now...", he said and sighed.

"Hm.. I see...So currently we don't know what we could do against it...", he said thoughtful.

"Nope...", he said, smiling slightly embarrassed. "But enough of that, we still need to plan a few things today and I have school tomorrow. I wont need much sleep since it's always the same boring stuff, but Aoko wouldn't like me to oversleep every day.", he said grinning.

Jii smiled a little and nodded. "Okay, then let us begin that quickly.", he said and so they planned some stuff for the next heist.

It was late at night when Kaito returned and he was already pretty tired, but they managed to prepare a few things this evening. The whole house was dark, so he guessed that his mum already went to bed. He didn't waste much time either and went to bed.

-

The next morning, Ran woke up Conan for breakfast. When he woke up, he was still pretty tired and thought about that stuff that happened yesterday and wished it'd be only a dream. He went down to eat breakfast with Ran and Kogoro and went with the Detective Boys to school.

"Ne..?", Ai asked, when they were in the back and not noticed by the euphoric babbling children in front of them. "Did you tell them?"

He looked at Ai and nodded."I told Ran but not Oji-san..", he said, "Ran understood it somehow, even though I think she was quiet surprised but I think it's better if her father doesn't know about this. I'll just try to hide from him… Can't be that hard.", he said and shrugged.

She giggled slightly and grinned at him. "Probably not, but you should still be careful. Also with them.", she said and nodded to the three children, who were still very engaged with their conversation. "They like and know about things that have to do with the supernatural, remember?"

"Huh?". He looked to the three kids and sighed. "I'll try my best to hide it from them... I don't want to be their new toy…", he said a little annoyed.

"That's the way...keep it on.", she said grinning evilly.

He looked at her and laughed ironic. "You really know how to cheer somebody up, you know that?", he said in a sarcastic tone.

"Of course.", she said with that same smile.

He looked at her and sighed.

After some time they were finally at school and he was glad it was not a place where you see/smell fish every day. He got some looks from Haibara sometimes, but it seemed as if she was just studying him like some new really interesting science experiment. He was noticing that, and felt like the first time they met. 'I hope she won't do anything to make the kids see the ears and tail...', he thought and sighed.

She smirked and focused her attention back to their teacher.

Conan sighed and also looked straight to the teacher again, even though it was really boring for him. 'Really... wasn't it already enough to bring me back to elementary school?', he asked himself and sighed again.

-

Kaito's mother had some trouble getting her son out of bed, since he insisted on staying there. Only when she reminded him of the wrath of a certain wild haired girl, when he didn't show up today made him wake up with a start and he hurried to get ready for school. He already was quite a few minutes late when he arrived at school and an annoyed Aoko greeted him.

When he finally appeared, she went to him. "I was starting to wonder where you were…", she muttered and pulled one of his ears, "Were you off chasing some mice?", she asked giggling.

He glared at her and muttered something about putting one in her bed next time she asked that.

She smiled amused and giggled. "I think I have still some fish somewhere~", she said and grinned at him.

He gulped and took a step away from her, glad that she didn't seem to have one with her.

A few footsteps behind him alerted him and he turned around to see a certain blond detective in front of him, staring with that strange calculating look into his eyes.

"What?", he asked in annoyance.

When Hakuba saw that Kaito Kuroba was in class he got curious about the ears and tail from yesterday. He knew that he was an expert at tricking people but yesterday didn't seem like a trick. He went to him and looked at him. "So you decided to come today, huh?", he said and watching at him, "Why did you leave yesterday all of sudden?"

Kaito suppressed a gulp and turned to him with an annoyed look. "What...? Should I have stayed to annoy you even more?", he asked with a sly grin. He did say that he would tell him when he asked, but old habits die hard. And evading questions like that was definitely one habit he couldn't get rid of.

"Hmph, I was just wondering. Is there any reason why you were dressed up like a Catboy-Cosplayer all of sudden?", he asked and lifted his brows.

"Errrr...you noticed that?", he asked nervously grinning. "It was just something for you to ponder upon...did work great, ne?" He stared at him with a really skeptical look.

"And you're telling me that I should believe this story?", he asked.

"Why not?", he asked and smiled innocently. He knew that he couldn't trick Hakuba with that, but it was just too much fun to annoy the Brit.

He muttered something and sighed. "Just forget it... I'll know about this soon enough...", he said and went back to his seat.

Inwardly, Kaito made a sigh of relief, seeing the detective leaving again. After that argument, he leaned back in his chair, sighing.

Saguru was still not satisfied, but he also knew that Kaito won't tell him anything so he just left it like that. But he was sure to talk about that again.

-

During the first break, Haibara turned to him again and smirked. "Enjoying your new life even more?", she whispered to him.

He sighed and looked at her. "Just shut up...", he said annoyed. "You really seem to be enjoying this, aren't you?", he asked her.

"Who? Me? That has to be your imagination.", she told him sweetly with a not so sweetly grin.

He gave her an unbelieving look and sighed. "Yeah, sure. You probably feel really sorry for me, don't ya?", he asked sarcastically.

"You can't imagine how sorry I feel for you, having yet another change in your body.", she said grinning.

"Well, it's hard to imagine that you feel sorry at all, you know?", he said and also grinned a little.

She raised an eyebrow at her. "So you're saying that I can't have this feeling?", she asked with a slight icy tone.

He gulped nervously."N-No, of course not!", he said quick, "Of course you can feel sorry, more than anyone."

Suddenly she grinned again. "Nice to hear that from you Edogawa-kun."

This time he just stayed quiet and only sighed. 'Why me..?', he thought and sighed again when he saw Ai's grin.

The moment their teacher walked in again, she looked at him again and left Conan to his misery.

Conan looked to the teacher, even though he couldn't really concentrate. When school was finally over he sighed in relief and couldn't wait to get back to the agency.

-

When he returned to the agency, Ran was already there, surprisingly early, but she said that two of her teachers were ill today, so she could prepare some food for them.

After she explained, why she was already there he got curious what she was cooking."Ne, Ran-neechan? What did you plan for lunch?", he asked.

She giggled a little. "Since you liked the food yesterday so much, I made us sushi.", she said and smiled sweetly.

He blinked and looked at her. "Sushi?", he asked, and when he thought about it the ears and tail popped out.

She giggled even more, when the words had the desired effect. "Kawaii~", she cooed and went back into the kitchen with a broad smile.

He noticed that the ears popped out again he looked at her confused and blushed a little. "Did she just say 'Kawaii'?', he asked himself surprised. Then he shrugged, because he didn't really understand women at all.

A few minutes later, she called him to lunch. Her father was off meeting that client again, because he hasn't made any progress in that case. So the two of them had the kitchen all to themselves.

He could already smell the fish and was waving his tail faster.

When she finally called him he came fast and sat down at the table and looking hungrily at the fish. "Here you go, Conan-kun!", she said and put the sushi on the table, taking place herself.

"Itadaki-masu!", he said and started eating, and did enjoy it, just like yesterday and dropped his ears, while he ate the sushi.

"Itadaki-masu!", she replied and ate some as well. Conan kept eating the sushi and enjoyed it like a real cat would do. "Delicious, Ran-neechan!", he said and smiled at her and put the next piece of sushi into his mouth.

She giggled at his cute comment and wondered for a while. "Ne, Conan-kun! Could it be that you are more cheerful now? You are usually so serious..."

At first he looked a little surprised at her and smiled a little embarrassed. "If you say so, I don't know.", he said then. 'Guess she is right... Probably because of some kind of Cat-Genes...', he thought and ate the rest of the sushi.

She titled her head at that answer and thought once more about it. Ever since she met Conan, he seemed a little more mature than normal children. Of course, there were incidents, when he acted like a cute little boy. Still smart, but definitely acting his age. But they were so very few compared to what she had seen from the detective boys. Now, he really seemed to brighten up more, another thing she noticed with time. He had been so dull or lost in thoughts sometimes, she was sure it wasn't normal for a child. But when she talked to him about it, it usually vanished in an instant.

He noticed that Ran got lost in her thoughts again and wondered what it was now. When he finished he stood up with his plate. "Thanks again, it tasted really good.", he said smiling and brought his dirty dishes into the kitchen.

She was startled out of her thoughts, when he suddenly talked to her. "Y-yeah...that's good.", she said and smiled. She finished her own meal as well and went to clean everything up.

He also helped her with cleaning the dishes and the ears and tail disappeared again, which he was pretty relieved about.

"I need to dust and clean the office a little...", Ran said while cleaning. "And you still have some homework to take care of, right? I'm not sure how your nose will take all the dust in the air..."

"Err.. Yes, okay.", he said and nodded. His sense really became better so he didn't says anything about it. "I'm upstairs.", he told her while he was leaving the kitchen and went to his room to do his homework.

After she saw him leaving, she started to do just what she had told him she would.

-

Kaito was glad that school ended without him getting the catboy look again. He only regretted, that he couldn't tease Aoko as much as he wanted since she would bother him with fish again.

After school was finished, Aoko went to Kaito and smiled innocently at him. "We walk home together, okay?", she asked in a really friendly tone, that it was almost scary.

He gave her a calculating stare, while he leaned himself a little away from her. "Uhh...sorry that I ask, but...why?", he asked carefully.

"Do I need a reason to go home with you?", she said sweet smiling. "I won't hurt you, don't worry…", she said and raised her brows.

"I'm not worrying about you hurting me, you know?", he told her. "Only if you include mental damage as well..."

"As if I could do something like that.", she said innocently and smiled.

His look indicated that no, he didn't believe her at all. "Sure...", he said, rolling his eyes in slight annoyance.

She smiled and took her bag. "So, can we go now?", she asked smiling.

He sighed and took his bag as well. "I don't really have a choice, now do I?", he asked while they went out of the room.

She didn't say anything and just smiled at him, in a innocent way, which is unusual for her. They left school together and Aoko smiled satisfied.

Kaito didn't really want to obey her like this, not with the way she was acting at the moment. He really shouldn't be going with her, but there would hell to pay afterward if he just left her like this.

"Oh, Kaito? Yesterday I found something at home, wait…", she said and was grabbing for something in her bag and when she had it she held it direct in front of him. It was a cat-toy and she waggled it around in front of his face.

At the sight of it, the ears and the tail were instantly out again and he was focusing on the still moving stick.

She giggled when she saw that Kaito really wanted to play with it and kept waving with it.

Wherever she waved it, he tried to snatch it from her hand, cat instincts, that didn't leave a trace of logical thinking, totally taking over.

She grinned amused and kept waving and had really fun watching Kaito playing.

He kept playing like that until the cat inside of him really wanted that moving thingy. He threw himself at her with a loud "Nyaa!", and they landed on the ground, Kaito on top, touching with one hand the little feathers at the end of the stick and the tail waving in excitement.

Aoko had to laugh when she looked at Kaito. "Now you really DO look like a cat!", she said giggling and kept waving. She'd love to have a photo from this, because this was really so not-Kaito.

"Nyaaa?" He made a confused sound, as she talked to him again. And a little tired of playing he cuddled up to her, making pleased noises.

She blushed a little when he cuddled up on her and giggled. "Kawaii~", she whispered and sat down on the ground and patted him and also scratched him behind his ears.

He calmed down, as he felt her hand against his hair and ears again. So much that he slowly woke up from the drowsiness and bolted upright, looking confused of what just had happened. When his actions slowly returned to his mind, he went through quite a few shades of red.

Aoko slowly noticed that he woke up and giggled when she saw how he blushed. "Ne, Kaito, you're a really cute kitty~", she said amused and poked him in his blushed cheek.

Which only made his blush worsen and he groaned. "Why does something like this always happen to me?", he complained and sighed. "I really don't like losing control like that..." 'What if something like this happens on a heist? Unthinkable!'

"I don't think it's that bad.", she said grinning, "The first time I really thought you're cute.", she said giggling.

He instantly changed into sulking mode. "This is not something I would wish for, you know?"

She grinned. "Don't be like that. I've never seen you so playful before.", she said giggling.

He sighed in desperation. "Oh, joy...so you're gonna make me change into that playful form more often from now on?", he asked and raised an eyebrow.

"Hm.. Maybe~", she said with a grin that was a little devilish. "You really looked like a cat, you know?", she said amused.

"Geez...", he sighed, looking annoyed at her. "If I ever get these people, they will wish they never did that to me."

"What will you do to them?", she asked grinning. "They just need some fish to get rid of you."

He snarled at the thought of having them chase him with these things. "Not sure what I'm gonna do...but they don't know the thing about the f-fish... And you're not telling them!", he exclaimed.

"Of course I won't tell them.", she said grinning, "I'm the only one who has the permission to chase you with fish."

"You. are. evil.", he muttered under his breath and glared at her.

"Who? Me?", she asked innocently."I don't know what you're talking about." She looked at her watch and then to Kaito. "I'd love to play with you more, but I have to go home now and make lunch for Otou-san. This Idiot Kid sent a new warning and he's been busy with work so he isn't much at home."

"Yeah...you do that.", he said and sighed and finally stood up again. "Better than embarrassing me..."

She grinned at him. "Seeya tommorrow, Kaito!", she said and went on her way home, still smiling. He sighed and waved goodbye as well before going home.


	3. The Problems of Catboys

**Catboys**

**Chapter Three: **The Problems of Catboys

by **Phantom-Akiko** and **Vampire-KIDDO**

thanks to **hallow777** for beta-reading

**-Hyper4EVER-** - Well, it took some time, but this chapter is also longer than the other two.

**bart4nat **- Yeah, I realised that as well, but was until now too lazy to change it^^° I changed all the chapters now

* * *

Conan did his homework, and as usual completed it really fast, then read some Sherlock Holmes stories. While he was reading, he also thought about the whole Cat-Thing and sighed. "I just hope those kids won't find out...', he thought.

Downstairs, Ran was done with the cleaning. She had already done what little homework she had. So, she sat on one of the couches and switched through channels on the TV. She stopped when they broadcasted the news, she heard a familiar name. "Conan-kun!", she called him downstairs, hoping he would hear her.

Conan looked up when he heard Ran and went downstairs. "What is it, Ran-neechan?", he asked, looking up at her.

"Come here! There's something on the news that you might want to see!", she told him.

Conan went downstairs and looked at the TV-screen. And found out that Ran was right, the news really was interesting. 'So he's planning a heist again...', he thought and sighed, 'Hopefully my ears and tail won't appear during the evening...'

"I wonder if Sonoko wants to go...do you want to go there?", she asked him, wondering.

He nodded. "Yes, it's sure to be exciting!", he said in a childish voice and smiled.

She giggled slightly and nodded. "With how you're famous for battling against Kid, we'll surely be able to get in the museum."

He nodded a little nervous."Even though the most of them were just coincidence.", he said. It would sound weird if he were to say that they are rivals or something.

"Yeah...that's sure strange...", she wondered. "There are not many other people, who just meet him because of mere coincidence...or are there?"

He got more and more nervous and scratched his head. "P-Probably he just likes to tease kids, that's all.", he said, nervously smiling.

"But...", she said and thought back to the incidences where she had met the Kid as well. "Doesn't he usually tease Nakamori-keibu and the rest of the police?", she asked in puzzlement.

"Well... that's probably because.. eto... I'm kinda on the police's side, because I'm also against Kid.", he tried to explained.

"Hmmm...That might be the reason...", she said. After a while of thinking that over, she giggled shortly. "Although there are sure not many criminals, who would think that you belong to the police...all of the other criminals were always caught shortly after that. Kid might be the only one to think so..."

He shrugged. "I don't know what Kid is thinking, though..", he said and smiled a little. "But is it okay if I go to the heist?"

"I think it's okay. But you must promise you'll be careful!", she told him.

He looked at her and smiled. "Sure, I promise.", he told her, "Until now I've never got hurt at a Kid heist, so it won't be different this time, I think."

She looked a little worried to him at that phrasing. "You think? What do you mean by that?"

"N-nothing, Really! I'll be careful, okay?", he promised her and looked at her.

She sighed, but let him go anyway. "Yeah, it's okay.", she said and smiled slightly.

He smiled when she allowed him to go. "Thanks Ran-neechan!", he said in a cute childish voice.

She giggled at the sight of Conan's cuteness. 'These things really seemed to mean a lot to him...', she thought, wondering about her little Conan.

He smiled and looked around. "Wow, Ran-neechan... you really cleaned up a lot!", he noticed.

"Thanks...", she said and blushed. "Well, since a certain someone never cleans up, it is always up to me.", she huffed.

"Well, he should be happy that you're always cleaning up.", he said and smiled a little and looked around. 'Hm.. I wonder where she put my book, which was laying on the table before....', he asked himself wondering.

"Yeah...he SHOULD be!", she said angrily, because he clearly took it as a perfectly normal thing. She then wondered if he was searching for something. "Are you looking for something, Conan-kun?"

He smiled a little nervous because of that comment and nodded. "Yes.. uh... Before you cleaned up, I put my Mystery novel on the table.", he told her.

She pondered for a while, then realized where it was. "I must have put it into that drawer there, so that it doesn't get dusty.", she said and pointed to said drawer.

He looked to the drawer and nodded. "Okay, thanks.", he said and went to the drawer and found his book. But then his eyes also saw something else his ears and tail popped out and twitched around.

Ran noticed the change instantly and wondered what had happened to cause this. 'I didn't put any fish into the drawer, that's for sure...', she thought and went slowly to him. 'There's only the book, a few pencils and...oh, the things I bought for Goro! That must be it!', she thought and went to see if she was right. And yes, there were various cat toys in there and Conan was staring at them with a cute curiosity. She picked one of the balls with bells in it up and watched for a change in Conan's behaviour.

Conan stared at the toys without even noticing and looked up when Ran was taking something out. His ears were twitching when he heard the bells and looked with big eyes at the balls and tried to hit them, he was close to give up logical thinking like Kaito.

She took in his reaction, thought about it for a second and threw the ball over to the other side of the room, where it made lots of ringing noises.

When Ran tossed the ball he completely lost his mind, twitching his ears when he heard the ringing again and ran on all fours after it, while his tail was twitching excitingly. When he reached the ball he swatted it again and again and sometimes made a "Nya~" sound.

She made his way to him where he crouched down on the floor and giggled at his childish actions. She crouched down in front of him and used her hand to move the ball a little as well.

He kept playing with the ball and really enjoyed it. He hit the ball again and again and when Ran started to play with him he jumped after the ball. It kind of looked like he was chasing the ball.

Ran had a lot of fun playing with him. 'It's like having an overgrown cat ', she thought, rolling the ball around and letting the little bell inside ring.

Conan played a while with the ball and really had fun. "Nya~", he yawned after a while and stopped chasing the ball. He had gotten quiet tired from chasing the ball and his ears drooped a little. Without thinking about it he just cuddled up to Ran.

"Cute~", she whispered and stroked him behind his ears.

He leaned more against Ran while she stroked him and calmed down. Slowly his mind returned and when he noticed what he was doing and what was Ran currently doing to him, he blushed.

Ran hadn't noticed the change and just continued to caress him on the head.

Conan felt embarrassed all of sudden. He did enjoy it but for him it'd be to embarrassing to keep it like this. "Uhm... Ran-neechan..?", he asked and looked slowly up at her.

She smiled down at him and noticed his red cheeks, which made her chuckle softly.

"Yes, Conan-kun? You seem to be normal again, huh?", she asked and titled her head to the side.

He nodded a little. "Seems like I kinda lost control of my actions...", he said and smiled embarrassed and was still surprised about what happened.

"But that was really cute, you know?", she told him and giggled a little.

He blushed even more when she said that. "Y-you think so? I completely lost control...", he said a little thoughtful, "I didn't imagine that something like this could happen."

"Hmhm~", she hummed. "It was definitely cute! I have never seen you this carefree before, it was quite a relief. Well, now we know, right? Don't bother yourself with it."

'That's because I was acting like a cat and not like me at all...', he thought and sighted. "Yea. So the ears and tail won't only pop out when I'm near fish..", he concluded..

"Well...there are usually not things around you like toys like that, right?", she smiled sweetly.

He looked at her and nodded. "Yeah, that's right... So fortunately this won't happen very often...", he said and smiled a little.

"Yeah...although I think you have to be careful about balls. Hmm...that reminds me...I wonder if you would go after a soccer ball like this..."

"Your probably right.", he said and nodded. "I don't know about that...", he wondered, "I haven't played since then."

"So, before you play outside you might want to try it somewhere alone, huh?", she wondered.

Again he nodded. "That's a good idea, I guess I should try it soon.", he sighed. If he plays soccer with the kids and the ears pop and the tail pop out he had a problem.

"Yeah...probably.", she said, smiling sweetly.

He wondered where he could play soccer without the possibility that somebody was watching him. "Hm... maybe I can try it at hakase's garden.", he said. The garden was pretty big and the only ones who could watch him were the Professor and Ai.

"So you want to try it out now?", she wondered.

"Uhm... maybe later or tomorrow.", he said and smiled a bit. "I'm still a little tired from playing..."

She giggled at that. "Sure. So you want to take a nap?"

He blushed a little and nodded. "I guess so..", he said and was again a little embarrassed.

"Sleep well~", she said and went upstairs to do her own homework.

Conan also went upstairs to his room. When he lay down it didn't take long for him to fall asleep, his ears and tail disappeared again.

The next day Ran woke Conan up as usual and he got ready for school. He thought about the Kid heist tomorrow and also about this cat-play-mood and hoped that won't happen in public or somewhere else. 'Right... after school I should go to the professor's to be sure about the soccer balls...', he reminded himself and went down to eat breakfast.

Kogoro still hadn't noticed anything different and Ran was very glad about that. She prepared his food for school and then went to eat some breakfast as well.

While they were eating Conan was deep in thought. "Ran-neechan? I'm going to hakase's place after school, so I'll be a little later here.", he told her, because he don't want her to worry.

"Of course! Have fun~!", she told him and giggled. Kogoro wondered shortly, what was up with her lately, but quickly dismissed it.

He smiled. "Thanks.", he said childish and finished eating. "I'll go to school now. See you later!", he said while he stood up and left the room with his school bag. The Kids were already waiting for him. 'I really hope they won't see that ever...', he thought and went with them to school.

A few minutes later, Sonoko appeared and talked the whole way to school about the Kid heist.

At school he sat down next to Haibara and sighed. He was still thinking about yesterday and couldn't forget it. 'How could I lose control like that anyway...?', he asked himself, because he's definitely the type who has a lot self-control.

"You seem depressed.", came an observation from his left.

"Huh?", he looked to Haibara and nodded, "Well, I found out something new about that Cat thing yesterday...", he explained.

"Oh?", she looked interested at him. "Do tell...", she told him with a sly grin.

He noticed her grin and really didn't want to tell her but he knew that she would find out later anyway. "Ran bought some cat toys with a ringing bell in them and when I saw it the ears and tail popped out. But after I begun to play with that thing I completely lost control and played with it like a cat and couldn't stop...", he said blushing a little, remembering that.

"Oooh...", she cooed. "You were having fun as a kitty? How sweet." she said and let out a little giggle.

He looked at her with his cheeks, still a little blushed. "Just shut up... It was embarrassing enough...", he muttered.

She broke into a real giggle, seeing his face flushing up like this. It was certainly not every day that she got to see him so flustered.

He looked at her a little annoyed and also embarrassed by her giggle. "Don't tell anyone, okay? If the kids find out my life will be even more hell!"

She calmed down to only let her smirk be seen. "Don't worry about that. I've already made your life hell once, I don't feel determined to make it even worse."

"Nice, thanks a lot...", he sighed. "Oh, by the way. After school I am going with you to the professor's place. I need to test if that also happens with normal soccer balls..."

"Ah, so we are going to see you losing control?", she whispered to him, grin widening.

"I didn't say I'll lose control for sure...", he told her," It just could be possible...And I should find out before the kids want to play soccer again.."

"That's true...", she said and smiled at the three children, who were talking about the Kid heist again.

He also heard the talk about the Kid heist and sighted. "I really hope I can still use my Power-Kick-Boots to shoot without turning into some playing cat...", he muttered. He didn't even want to imagine that.

She giggled shortly at that thought. "I would think the Kid would find that highly amusing."

"That's for sure...", he said and looked up when it was ringing. During the lesson he thought about the heist tomorrow and hoped that it wouldn't end up like Ai had said.

The rest of the school day was as normal as it could get. The detective boys inquiring information about the heist, school being utterly boring and all that.

When school was over he packed up his stuff and waited for Haibara and the others and went off home.

The rest of the detective boys soon followed, the three actual kids in front of the not so real kids. It was after they went out behind the school yards that Ayumi turned with a worried expression to Conan. "Ne, Conan-kun...daijôbu? You were really quiet all day...and yesterday as well. Is something wrong?"

When Ayumi asked that he looked first a little surprised then smiled."I'm fine, don't worry.", he told her, "I haven't been getting enough sleep so I'm a little tired.". Of course that wasn't true, but he couldn't tell her, that he was thinking about being part cat.

She titled her head and mused a little while about that. "Hmmm...okay.", she said smiling. "Then you should go to bed early today."

"I will, don't worry.", he said smiling. 'I'm not sure if I'll get enough sleep in the next time at all...', he thought and kept going.

She nodded happily after that and they continued their way. Soon, they split up, the two adults turned kids in one direction to Hakase's house, the other ones continued their way to their homes.

Soon they arrived and Conan put his school bag aside and looked through the window at the garden. "Ne, should I tell Hakase about what I wanted to test?", he asked and looked to Haibara.

"Would be better, I guess.", she said nonchalantly and shrugged. After that she left him where he stood in the garden, went into the house and announced her arrival.

He started after her then looked for the Professor. "Agasa-hakase?", he shouted through the house and looked around, wondering where he was.

A distant "I'm here!", came from the direction of the lab and shortly after that a little explosion announced another of the professors failures. Smoke came out of the door and with it a coughing professor, who had grunge all over his body. "Oh, what is it, Shinichi?", he asked unworried about what had just happened down there.

He blinked as he saw the smoke and sweat-dropped. 'Obviously another failure...', he thought and looked up to the professor. "Well... looks like that this cat thing can bring me into some kind of play-mood...", he explained, "and while in this mood I completely lose control, so I wanted to test if it also happens if I play soccer."

"Ah...", said Agasa nodding. "All right, go ahead. You would most likely want the soccer ball you left here, right?", he asked and was already on his way to where he had last seen it. He came back with the soccer ball and tossed it to Conan.

"Right.", he said and waited till he came back. He took the ball and looked to the professor again. "Well...I'm outside then...", he told him and went out in the garden.

"Have fun!", he called after him and went back down to the lab to clean the whole mess up.

"Haha... thanks...", he muttered, not really happy. First of all he tried if he could still kick with the soccer ball of his belt and the speed of his Power-Kick-Boots. After he kicked with full power a ball of the belt against a tree he was pretty relieved that there was still no sign of acting cat-like. 'Hm...next I should try if I can play normal soccer...', he thought and took his normal ball and played a bit. Still, no sigh of acting cat like. But when he stopped playing and the ball just rolled around the ears and tail popped out again. He still had control of himself, but still he started to kick the ball more slowly and stared at it.

He just kept kicking the ball slowly around and saw it rolling. And after some time he lost control again and jumped to the ball and sat in front of it, like he was going to chase it. His tail was twitching and he pushed the ball again and again and jumped at it, and sometimes he made some playful "Nyah~"sounds.

"How cute.", came a comment from a smirking Ai from the door as she watched him like this. She raised an eyebrow at his unusual behaviour.

He didn't notice Ai till the comment and glared at her with a confused look in his eyes. After a while of silence he just started playing around again and looked like he really enjoyed it.

She sighed to herself and shook her head slightly. Feeling a little ignored, she went back to reading her fashion magazine inside the house.

Conan kept playing till he got tired and just lay down on the ground next to the soccer ball and took a short nap. When he woke up after a while he was back to normal and looked around and found the ball next to him and sighted annoyed. 'So it didn't go so well...', he thought and went into the house again.

Ai looked up from her fashion magazine as he entered the house again. "It seemed as if you had lots of fun.", she said with an evil grin.

He looked at her and snorted. "Haha.. I hope you are the only one who saw me out there like that."

"I think so, so don't worry." She cast one evil grin to him and went back to reading.

He got kinda worried by seeing that grin and sighed. "Well, I guess I should go back to the agency.", he said and grabbed his school bag.

She just nodded and didn't even look up.

He glared at Ai and left the house then and went back to the agency. 'So... I can still use my shoes and belt...', he thought and sighed relieved. When Conan was back he opened the door and wondered if Ran was already home and put his bag away.

Ran was indeed home and when she heard the door, she peered through the door of the kitchen. "Ah, Conan-kun! You are finally here!", she said with a smile.

Conan looked to Ran and nodded. "Yea, I was at Hakase's until now.", he said. "Is Oji-san home or at a client's again?", he wondered and looked to Ran.

She sighed. "Listen closely and you can hear him calling 'Yoko-chan'", she said and rolled her eyes.

He looked at her and he really could hear him...and he wish he couldn't and sighed. 'Sad picture of an adult... admiring a teen-star...', he thought. "I see...", he said, "Well... seems like I still can play soccer but if I see the ball rolling slow I start to get in that playful mood again.", he explained.

"Oh, well...", Ran said and sighed. "At least you can still play your favourite sport. I couldn't imagine what Shinichi would be like if he couldn't play soccer any more...", she said and giggled slightly.

"Uhm, yea, right. I'm also glad.", he said smiling. 'Thanks a lot Ran... now I feel so much better...', he thought but still had the child's sweet smile on his face.

She nodded slightly and smiled. "Why don't you help me prepare the table, hm?"

"Okay.", he nodded and went with her back into the kitchen and put the dishes on the table.

After a while, she brought the food on the table and called her father.

While they were eating nothing special happened. Ran yelled a bit at her Dad and, fortunately, neither the Cat ears nor tail popped out.

After the meal, Ran cleaned the dishes and her father went down to continue his task of watching Yoko Okino.

Conan helped Ran clean the dishes and put them back where they belong. "I'll go back to my room.", he said smiling to Ran and left the kitchen.

"All right!", she said smiling and went to her own room.

He went into his room and thought about the Kid heist which was soon.

-

Kaito's Mother finished making breakfast and headed upstairs. "Kaito! Breakfast!", she shouted through the door while knocking.

Kaito was just done with getting dressed when he heard his mother's voice. "Coming!", he called to her, grabbed his school bag and went with her down to the kitchen.

"Ne, Kaito? Did those ears pop out yesterday again?", she asked curious.

"Uhhh..." That was a bad question. "Yeah...they did. Aoko brought some kind of cat toy, a stick with feathers with her to school and tested it on me. I even lost control and played with that stupid thing...", he said embarrassed, his face flushing bright red.

She looked surprised at her son and giggled. "You played with a cat toy?", she asked amused, "I'd love to see that!"  
"Not. Gonna. Happen!", he said determined and felt the heat in his cheeks. "It was the most embarrassing thing I can ever remember...losing control like that...", he said and sighed.

She giggled again when she saw Kaito like that. "But it wasn't your fault. So don't worry okay?", she said smiling.

"Jeez...it's not gonna getting better, knowing that...", he told her. Then, he took a look at the clock on the wall. "Shit! That late? Aoko's gonna kill me...or she'll play kitten with me...not sure which is worse.", he said rapidly while stuffing his lunch box in his school bag and slipping into his shoes. "Gonna go!", he called to her and was already out the door hurrying to school.

When he said that she also looked at the clock and then to Kaito, who already stood up. "Have a nice day!", she called to him and giggled a little, when she thought about what he said.

Kaito hurried along the street, then took to climbing one fire ladder, when the direct way was definitely faster than all the curves of the road. Having more of his cat senses would have been better now, but he also didn't really want to face the thing that would bring them out. His school slowly came into view and he made it through the doors and corridors until he ran into his classroom and jumping right into his seat, surely giving his classmates one hell of a shock.

Aoko already noticed that Kaito was late and sighed. 'What's this idiot doing..?', she asked herself and got shocked when he suddenly came in. She looked at him a little annoyed. "That was close..", she told him, because the bell rang just 2 seconds after he sat down.

He just grinned at her. "Sorry! But I made it, didn't I", he asked innocently.

She sighted. "Yes, even though it was really close.", she said and grinned a little, "Do you want to play Kitty later again?", she asked giggling.

"Do me a favour, Aoko...ok?", he asked sweetly. "Do not say anything about THAT in class!", he warned her. He knew that it would give a certain someone ideas. And he was sure that he wouldn't like them.

She smiled. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone.", and grinned, "Only I can play with you~", she said amused.

He groaned and wondered, if it was worth it to bang his head on the table. She just couldn't let go of that, could she?

She still grinned amused and looked forward when the teacher came in. Yesterday she thought a few times about what happened and giggled every time.

As their teacher droned on about something Kaito knew anyway, his head came slowly nearer to his desktop, until he was curled onto the table, sleeping soundless.

Aoko sighed when she saw Kaito sleeping again. She tried to pay attention to class and ignore the sleeping Kaito.  
The teacher has long known the magicians ways of ignoring his lessons. But that didn't mean that he accepted them. Kaito blinked hazily as a chunk of chalk hit his head. He murmured something and went into a sitting position again.  
She looked at Kaito with a little grin. "You deserved that..", she whispered to him and looked to the teacher again.

"Shut up...", he murmured through the layers of his clothes, since he was still in that same position as before.

She ignored what he said and tried to pay attention to the teacher again.

The rest of this lesson was quite tiring for Kaito, but he paid some attention to it anyway. He was just glad, when the bell rang. He stretched his arms and legs, yawning pretty openly. When he noticed what he was doing, he stopped immediately, afraid Aoko would link that back to him being part cat.

Aoko was also glad when the bell rang and looked at Kaito and giggled again.

He looked at her rather irritated.

She smiled. "A shame... even though you're kinda part cat, you still don't like fish..", she said and giggled a little.

"Can't see a shame there...they're still horrible evil creatures!", he exclaimed with a huff.

"Yeah, really evil...", she said grinning, "The worst thing that could happen to you..", she said and looked at Kaito with a smirk.

"Well...there ARE more evil things than fish, I guess...", he said shrugging and thinking about some bastards in black. "But not many..."

"Like Ice-Skating?", she asked grinning. "Maybe you are better at that now.", she said, "Cats do have really good balance..."

"Errr...dunno...maybe. But it's not like I want to try it.", he said and sighed. "And no...I don't think of that being more evil...", he said and chuckled. "I would think you could be more evil when you are in a MOOD.", he said grinning.

She gave him an evil glare for that comment and grinned. "You should be careful with what you say, or I'm gonna play Kitty with you again..", she said in a amusing tone.

"Heh...I kinda can't help it...", he said and sighed.

"Hm... poor Kitty..", she said and smiled softly. "How about I'll buy you some cat-toy...maybe you'll feel better with that."

"No. Thanks.", he huffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "I could live the rest of my life without them, you know?"

"Sure about that? The last time you seemed to enjoy playing around a lot..", she teased him giggling.

"Really? Sorry, can't remember. I was kinda in a different world back then, you know? So I couldn't have enjoyed it when I can't really remember anything." But while this was said, a little embarrassed blush appeared on his cheeks as a sign that he did remember a little.

She grinned while he was talking because she saw that his cheeks blushed a little. "And you really can't remember anything?"

"Nope! Nothing! Not while I was faaar away.", he reassured himself.  
Still not really believing him, she nodded. "If you say so...", she said. "But you really did have fun.", she told him.

"Fine...don't care. I also don't think losing control like that could be called fun, you know?", he asked and snorted.

"Well... I still think you had a lot of fun.", she giggled. "You should have seen yourself."  
He felt a little uneasy at that. "Err...no thanks."

"Probably too embarrassing for the great magician, right?", she asked teasing.

Kaito felt a blush creeping up his cheeks as he looked bristled at his childhood friend.

She giggle as she saw that. "Kaito, you're cheeks are pretty red~"

"You shut up!", he spoke under his breath. That hadn't helped his hormones one bit. "Jeez...it that cat thing manipulating my normal reactions as well?", he wondered.  
Aoko looked at him thoughtful. "Well... you don't blush often....", she said and grinned.

"Uh! And I would be glad if that would still be the case.", he told her and sighed. 'And I would be a happy little Kaitou if this wouldn't happen at the heist either.'

"Huh? But you look way more cute this way..", she said giggling and poke him in his blushed cheeks.

He glared at her from where he sat, huffed and glared to the blackboard, hoping it would do him a favour and just melt. Then he could go home at least. But suddenly a body obscured his view and he found himself eye to eye with a very curious tantei. 'Oh no...not him. Please! Not when I'm like this.' At his glare, which held still an amount of scarlet on his cheeks, The corners of Hakuba's mouth switched to a slight grin. For a brief moment, Kaito wondered if the detective was on drugs. Hakuba normally did not smile like that and it freaked him out a little.

Aoko looked to Kaito and then to Hakuba who was looking at Kaito. "Hm.. I wonder why Hakuba-kun is grinning like that. I wonder if something good happened to him?", she wondered.

"I guess you think some of my new habits are quite fun, ne Hakuba?", he asked and looked annoyed at the blond.

The blond looked at the magician and his grin turned into a smile. "Just as Nakamori-chan said: It's not often we to see you blush.", he said.

"Fine! I got it! Be happy and go away, will you?", he said and made a shooing motion with his hands, rather annoyed with the detective.

"Hmph. It's also not often that we get to see you annoyed like that.", he said grinning.

"You're annoying enough for that...", he huffed and took a sidelong look at the Brit. A slooow smile crossed over his face as he considered an idea.

Hakuba shrugged, still smiling. "Well, the lesson will start soon.", he said and went back to his seat. Aoko looked at Kaito again and raise her brows. "Kaito, what's up with that smile?", she asked.

"Oh, nothing!", he reassured her, still grinning like a moron.

"Kinda hard to believe that.", she said and sighed. When the bell rang again she also went back to her seat.

Kaito went back to his seat and watched the teacher come into the room. Then their teacher was droning about history and Kaito got quite bored after a time. There was suddenly a 'pfffff...' noise and the whole room was filled with pink smoke. When the smoke cleared again, everyone had a different bright hair colour, their teacher was soaked wet and there was jell-o like substance on Hakuba's desk. And a certain magician was grinning.

Aoko blinked, already knowing who was behind this glared at Kaito and already got the mop in her hands. "Kaito...!", she shouted and began to chase him. Hakuba joined Aoko after a short while, because he was also pretty mad.

Kaito laughed merrily as he got chased around and made his way over several desks and the heads of their classmates.

Aoko, still chasing him, shouted at him. "Stop Kaito, or I'll show you some fish!"

"But then I'll get hit with that mop of yours, right? So I'm NOT looking!", he called back to her and already made his way to the door.

She chased after him, with her mop still in her hands. "Hey, Stop!", she yelled at him.

"Nope! Not gonna do that!", he called grinning back at her and got through the door of the classroom.

"Kaito!", she yelled and followed him. "If you don't wanna see the fish I'm gonna throw it at you!"

That got a reaction from Kaito and he came to an immediate stop. "What? You're kidding!", he exclaimed and looked back to her. "Uh...no. Not kidding. Damn."

When he finally stopped she tried to hit him with her mop. "No kidding.", she replied.

He took a step to the right and evaded her like that.

She tried to stop him a few more times, but always missed. "Kaito!", she yelled and stopped waving her mop at him.

He blinked in confusion as she just yelled at him. "What? Already out of steam?", he asked with a grin and leaned towards her.

"All right!", she said and held a fish right in front of his face, "That's enough!", she said grinning.

"WHAAAAAAAA!", he screamed and then he was up on one of the supports of the building. He looked with a frightened look down to her, where she still wriggled the fish around for him to see. Of course, the damned tail and ears were back out as well and high on alert. Hakuba, who had chased him out of the classroom as well and was now standing behind Aoko made a surprised noise at the sight of the new 'accessories'.

Aoko grinned devilish and still hold the fish to him. "Ne, is something wrong?", she asked and didn't even noticed Hakuba who was standing behind her and started to grin a little.

"T-that...you said you WEREN'T going to throw the f-f-finny things at me, if I stopped. I DID stop!", he exclaimed from above and was very happy to stay there.

"That's right, and I didn't throw anything at you.", she said grinning. "I'm still holding, see?"

"That's not in any way reassuring!", he shouted down at her. He looked down and his eyes were stuck to the stupid fish. "Aokoooo~?" *whimper* "Get it awaaaay!"

"Hm...", she stared at him thoughtful and put the fish away. "Fine I think you have had enough of it...", she said, still grinning a little, because the ears and the tail popped out again.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the fish was put away, but still didn't want to come down just yet. "Say, Nakamori-chan...", Hakuba interrupted them. "Since I doubt that Kuroba is going to tell me, would you be so kind to tell me what the hell is going on?", he said the last few words with expiration.

Aoko just then noticed Hakuba and looked at him. "Uhm...well... in fact, I promised Kaito that I won't tell anyone, so...", she said and looked for a short while at Kaito and then back to Hakuba.

Kaito sighed then. "Alright...I did promise you that I would tell him, if he ever found out, remember?", he asked and landed with more grace than normal in front of them. "Well...", he said and looked to Hakuba, trying to find the right words. "You asked why I looked like that the other day. Short version: I got kidnapped by mad scientists and they made me part cat. They do pop out in some instances, which I am not going to tell you.", he said and shrugged his shoulders.

Hakuba listened carefully to his explanation and was still kinda confused at the end. "So...those ears and tail are real, aren't they..?", he asked still a little confused because the story wasn't really something that you could call 'ordinary'.

"Yup!", he said and grinned slightly. He moved his ears a little and wound his tail around Hakuba's arm. "See? I can move them how I want."

Hakuba looked still confused at his tail and nodded. "Yes... I see..", and looked to Kaito again. "Seems like you actually like that stuff..", he commented.

Kaito huffed in annoyance at that and unwound his tail from Hakuba's arm. "No...not really. It's not very enjoyable for me, when I lose control over it and act like a real cat, you know?", he told him and rolled his eyes. "And Aoko isn't making it better!"

Hakuba looked at his tail again and grinned a little of the imagination, Kaito playing as a cat. "Is that true, Nakamori-chan?", he asked and Aoko nodded with a giggle.

Kaito rolled his eyes again. "Just don't bother me with that. It's bad enough as it is...", he said and sighed. "And now excuse me, I need to get rid of these things...", he said and pointed to his tail and cat ears and went down the hall to the stairs to the roof, where he would be able to relax.

Aoko and Hakuba watched him leave and Aoko giggled a bit. Hakuba just raised his brows. "Actually, this is only weird.", he said and sighed. Then they both went back to class.

On the roof, Kaito calmed down again and soon the ears and tail disappeared again, but it took quite a while, because of the appearance of fish.

Aoko and Hakuba sat in class again, even though their classmates were still mad at Kaito because of the hair-color change.

And this was also the reason why Kaito stayed a little longer than necessary away from class.

And soon the school was finished, Aoko sighed. "I'm sure he spent the whole time up there...", she muttered and packed her stuff together.

Just then Kaito's head appeared from the door and he went to his desk to get his stuff as well.

When she saw him, Aoko went to his desk. "Ne Kaito, the whole class is kinda mad at you...", she said with a little grin. "Maybe you should skip school for the next days.."

He looked surprised at her and thought for a moment. "You know what?", he said and beamed. "That's a great idea, Aoko!"

"Baka!", she yelled at him."You can't just skip school because of your own stupidity!"

His grin ended in a curious frown. "But you just suggested it, didn't you?"

"That was joke, idiot...", she muttered. "Have you been on the roof all the time?"

"Yup!", he said grinning. "Very nice up there!", he said and shouldered his school bag.

"Glad that you enjoyed it.", she said and left the class and sighed, because of her childhood friend.

He looked after her, shrugged and just followed her.

They walked for a while in silence."Do you think it's bad that Hakuba-kun knows about the kitty-thing?", she asked him.

"Uhh...yes, I do think so. He now has more ways to annoy me.", he said smiling nervously. 'Not to mention that he could totally ruin one of my next heists with that knowledge...'

"Hm... well, I don't think he'll tell anyone..", she said and smiled at him.

"Hmmm..." He pondered a while about that. "Maybe...hopefully...", he said and shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know why he should tell anyone else...well, I can imagine that he'll do if you do stuff like today to him more often."

"Heh! Yeah, probably...but who should he tell? Akako? Or just the whole school? It's not as if he has really good friends, right?"

"Hm.. I haven't thought about that yet.", she said thoughtful, "But you're right. Mostly he hangs out alone or makes weird comments to you..."

He nodded slightly. "So the people he is most around with would be us, huh?", he said, looking up at the ceiling.

"Seems so..", she said and also nodded. "I haven't noticed that before..", she wondered.

"Well...", he said and shrugged his shoulders. "Doesn't really matter to me..."

She sweat dropped and looked at Kaito. "Of course, you'd say something like that."

"Sure, what'd you expect?", he asked with a rather toothy grin.

"That.", she just said and looked at him.

He just grinned even more and they made their back to their houses.


	4. Heist

**Catboys**

**Chapter Four:** Heist

by **Phantom-Akiko** and **Vampire-KIDDO**

thanks to **hallow777** for beta-reading

We really have to apologize to Kaito in this chapter...we let him suffer so much...^^°

How the name is already suggesting, this entire chapter is nearly only about the heist.

Have fun^^

* * *

The days went by and all too soon it was the evening of the KID heist. Conan worked on getting used to all the new cat stuff he had to deal with so that hopefully they wouldn't appear during the heist. He went with Ran and Kogoro to the museum where all the police already were.

Kaito had done the remaining preparing with Jii and they were in position. The heist wasn't due to take place for another hour, so they had still time.

Kid took a last glance into his binoculars and scanned the area of the museums. "Let's see...there's Nakamori, shouting at his men again...and there's Hakuba. Looking smug tonight, aren't we? Wonder if he's planning something about my new nature. Oh, and there is tantei-kun! That's gonna be fun. I wonder if he will notice my new agility and balance..."

The shrunken detective was patiently waiting and also thought about that. 'Maybe my new balance will be helpful while chasing him...', he thought and sighed, 'as long those damn ears and tail don't pop out...', and could already imagine Kid's grin, seeing him like that.

Kaito waited for the rest of the time then flew with his glider a minute before the arranged time onto a balcony of the museum.

Conan watched at his watch again and again until he could count the seconds until it was finally time for Kid to appear. Then he heard some police shout "Kid! On the balcony!", and looked immediately in that direction.

The thief went through the huge glass doors as if they weren't even locked. Which they actually were. He stepped up on the railing of the upper corridor, jumped in the air and let himself fall towards the ground again. He landed in the middle of the museum's floor.

When he landed in the middle of the floor the police ran towards him and tried their best to catch them. "Catch him!", Nakamkori-keibu yelled. Conan kept still and watched what Kid was going to do next. If he were to run towards him, he'd get lost under the police.

He evaded the first officer with a jump in the air and used his head to avoid a collision with two other officers, who now lay dazed on top of the other. The game of dog-pile-on-the-bandit continued like this until all the police officers were in one pile and also stuck together from the blue paint that Kid had somehow managed to stick between them. All in all, Kid was having loads of fun and was laughing like the idiot he was. When he was lounging on top of the pile of officers like one giant dove, Hakuba approached the thief from behind, hoping to surprise the Kid. But then, the thief suddenly did a flip in the air and was suddenly behind the blond detective, who soon found himself tied up against the nearest pillar of the museum. Which only left Kid and Conan.

Conan had watched this and sighed. 'How can the police be so stupid?', he asked himself and really wondered. Kinda tired of Kids game he turned the power of his shoe on and noticed that he and Kid were the only ones left. "You really had fun,didn't you?", he asked, glaring at him annoyed.

Kid turned around to him and *grinned*. "Oh, how can you tell, Tantei-kun?", he asked innocently and prepared to leap, if the detective should shoot one of his soccer balls again.

"Maybe because of your stupid laughing?", he said and pushed the button on his belt and let a soccer ball appear before kicking it straight in his direction.

Kid leaped out of the way without a problem and bounced over to the case, where the gem still lay inside the glass case. Humming some sort of tune, he quickly picked the lock and had the gem in his pocket a few seconds later. With that he swirled around to the detective again. "My laughing might be stupid, but I have the gem."

Conan looked at him and pointed his stun-gun at him. "Not for long!", he said and tried to get him with a shot of his stun-gun.

Kid dodged the dart with a jump over the pedestal, the dart got stuck in the material of the case and the thief vanished with a mock bow and a puff of smoke from the room.

"Shimatta!", Conan swore when Kid disappeared in the smoke and looked around and ran to the exit of the room, hope to find him before he could escape.

Kid had already made his way to the roof, where he checked if the jewel was the Pandora Gem or not. He sighed as the gem did nothing in the full moon's light.

When Conan found the stairs he hurried up to the top and finally arrived on the roof. He saw the thief, putting the gem back and slowly came up to him, not making a sound.

After tucking the gem safe in one of his pockets, Kid sighed and looked across the town. He already wondered, where the Chibi-tantei was, but he was sure, that he would hear the little footsteps as soon as he would make his way to the roof.

The little detective noticed that Kid didn't noticed him and turned his shoe on again and pushed another ball out of his belt. By now the thief should have heard him, because he was kicking the ball with full power to the thief again.

Kid indeed only heard the detective, when he heard the familiar clicks of the shoes mechanisms. He was just turning around and about to flee, as he already felt the ball slam into his waist, sending him over the edge of the rooftop. Luckily for him, the museum wasn't that high. Still three stories high, but he even managed to land on his feet and hands after doing a flip in mid-flight. And for the sake of his own freedom, he ignored the pain in his stomach for now.

First Conan was pretty satisfied that he hit the thief but didn't thought that he'd fall down the building. He ran to the edge and saw Kid already on the ground, with no hint of any injuries. Conan wondered how the thief managed to do that and looked for another way to get down. Then he discovered some ornament on the wall of the building and after thinking about it, he jumped down and by climbing and jumping he was soon also on the ground. 'Good thing that I have more balance...', he thought till he was on the ground again.

Kid looked surprised at the way Conan made it down to the ground. "Was he always this good...?", he wondered absently, before he checked the door of the museum. ' No police officer there, yet. Must still be in a tangle of themselves...Hakuba might be free already, but he hasn't gotten out yet...'

He also noticed that the police still wasn't around and sighted. 'Damn thief...', he swore and looked at him. "Seems like you can't use your glider any more.", he said grinning.

"Oooh, who said that?", he asked with a smirk and went off. He made his way onto the street next to the museum and went to the direction of the slightly bigger buildings.

"Hey!", Conan yelled and ran after him and trying not to loose him.

When he arrived at the first higher building, he took a look backwards and saw that the detective had been faster than he expected, but was still far behind. He turned a corner and already climbed up the fire escape, thinking that just running up there would waste too much time, anyway.

He still saw how the thief climbed up the fire escape and sighed. 'Why can't he just stop?', he thought and also climbed up there, hoping that the thief won't be too much faster than him.

From the top of the fire escape, he jumped directly to the next roof and waited there for a moment to see Conan climbing up there as well. 'He's gotten GOOD. I wonder if he just never used it or if I just haven't noticed it...'

Right now, Conan was pretty thankful for his new senses. He also wondered that the thief can climb so much, but he didn't thought about it any more and jumped after him on the roof and asked himself how long the chasing will go on.

Kid grinned as the boy landed on the roof as well and run over to the next rooftop, and kept on running.

Conan quickly started to follow him and was glad that he could manage the jumps over the rooftops.

Kid had very much fun with leading the detective around across the rooftops. He usually didn't have the opportunity to do so with other people. So he chuckled slightly, as he watched the detective approaching him, as he was standing on some sort of glass covered roof. He wasn't able to see what lay inside the building, but it wasn't rather important for him, anyway. What he didn't notice were the cracks a few feet in front of him.

After the thief finally stopped after a while Conan also stopped at the roof and grinned. "Want to do this chase for another few hours?", he asked and when he took a look down he also noticed that it was some sort of glass roof and also noticed the cracks. He gulped when the cracks got bigger.

Kid's now better ears also picked up the noise of the cracks getting bigger. 'Oooops...guess that roof was not designed for people standing on it...', he thought just as the ground gave away and they both fell into whatever lay below the glass. Kaito felt water hitting his body and he struggled not to breathe the water.

When Conan felt that he felt into water he tried to open his eyes again and blinked when he saw the fish, even if it wasn't that clearly because he was under water. 'Probably some sort of aquarium...', he noticed and fast swam up to breath air again. When he looked around he noticed that the tail and the ears popped out again and sighted annoyed. "Just great...", he muttered and his wet ears drooped.

Kaito felt something brush his one leg and opened his eyes to see what it was. His mind already told him, what it could possibly be, what animal would swim in the water, but he didn't want it to be true yet. When his eyes came face to face with a fish however, he tried to scream, which only erupted in a flow of bubbles. He swam fast to the surface and took a few long breaths, before he climbed onto the next prop he could get his hands on. With now being a little calmer, he noticed his ears, which hung under his hat and the tail that was hanging down. It didn't help that he was wet all over. 'Well, shit...', he thought and took a look at his little rival. His eyes went wide, as he saw the nearly identical cat ears.

When Conan noticed some bubbles next to him, he looked into the direction and suddenly saw Kid who looked like he had total panic... and than he also noticed the ears and the tail of the other and blinked a few times. "Wait a sec... is that real or just one of your jokes..?", he asked.

"Why should I use jokes like that, when I didn't even know about your current condition?", he said with a raised eyebrow. He noticed how his body still shook from fear at the memory of the fish.

He also went up on the prop and looked at Kaito. "Uhm... could it be you got kidnapped by some mad scientist a few days ago?", he asked curious and raised one eyebrow.

"Eh...? Yeah...you too?", he asked and raised an eyebrow as well.

He sighed and nodded. "Yes and now, unfortunately, these ears and tail keep popping out sometimes or it's getting even worse..", and thought about that play-mood thing.

"Worse...the loosing control thing?", he asked and sighed. "Guess we have similar problems, huh?", he asked, grinning slightly.

He looked surprised at him and nodded. "Well, seems so.", he agreed, "But you got quiet shocked when we fell in here?", the shrunken detective wondered then.

"Uhh~" He glanced a little nervous to the large hole they made. "Kind of...", he admitted, but also didn't want to tell the detective about his fear of fish.

"May I ask why? Hate cold water or something?", he asked curious.

"No, you may not ask why.", Kid said and shrugged.

Conan blinked and snorted. "Fine then...", he muttered, "Too bad I don't have ball here you for you. I'd love to see the great thief, playing around like a cat.", he grinned.

"Oh...you would, wouldn't you?", said thief answered with a smirk. "Bet you would lose control as well if you see the ball rolling. So what? The great detective of the east playing around like that?"

He looked at him and sighted. "Probably... well... you probably also didn't find anything to stop those cat stuff to pop out, did you?"

"Nope...and I have a person, who likes to find new ways of making them pop out.", he said and sighed.

"Sounds nice.", he said, glad that Ran was not like that. "I don't think Ran'll do something like that on purpose... even though she likes to see me like that. She even thinks it's cute..", he mumbled at the end.

"Well...same here.", he said and let out a groan. "I could understand that a little boy would be cute with them, but me?", he wondered.

"I'm not sure about that, probably they think it's always cute?", he said and sighed. "At least I'm not the only one who has to deal with it."

"Yeah...kind of good to know, huh?", he said and chuckled. "Think they would look for us, since we both obviously escaped?"

"Mh... not sure..", he said and thought about that. "Could be... I mean... they probably wanted to do something else with us, when the retrained us... even though I don't really wanna know what exactly...", he mumbled because that was already enough.

"Something even worse than this? Oi, Tantei-kun...don't even go there...", Kid said and shuddered. "But I think so, too...", he said and sighed.

"I just hope they don't kidnap me again. It is already enough to being shrunken..", he sighed annoyed.

"Guess we have to stay on alert then...I'm not fond of mad scientists kidnapping me as well.", he said equally annoyed.

The detective nodded and smirked. "Well, next time I see someone with that cat-stuff I'll probably know your true identity.", he grinned.

Kid muttered something incomprehensible at that and sighed. He knew it was most likely true anyway.

"How many of your people know about the ears-tail thing anyway?"

"Uhh...three people. Not sure about a fourth one, 'cause she's unpredictable like that, but that would be it..."

He nodded and thought about that. "Well, also only makes three people. Lucky that the kids don't know about that... They wouldn't mind at all to let that stuff appear...", he sighed.

The thief laughed slightly. "I can imagine that!"

Conan nodded and stood up, after some water on his body was gone.

Kid raised his head slightly to follow the other's moves.

"Well, I can't use my stun-gun any more, but I still can use my shoes.", he said and grinned at him.

The kaitou gulped slightly, as he heard that and was on his feet moments later as well.

Conan pushed another ball out of his belt and hit him again with the ball. But Conan put the shoes only on low, because he just wanted to see the thief fall into the aquarium.

The slight round about drill the ball got from Conan's kick got him by surprise and in the back. He had thought he would only need to jump a little to avoid the thing, but now his eyes flew open in horror, as he saw the water and the FISHES under him. As some sort of last lifeline, his tail wound itself around the prop and he dangled now with his nose a few inches away from the surface of the water. Now, he was really glad that he had his tail. But he could already see the fishes clearer than he had ever wished and stiffened up.

Conan watched him and had a big grin in his face. 'Seems like he really doesn't like that...', he thought an looked to his tail, which held him over the water. "Why don't you wanna go swim?", he asked amused stepped to his tail, "Don't worry, I'll help you.", he said in an innocent little boy's voice and grabbed the thief's tail.

Kaito, now pretty much the teenage magician, rather than the phantom thief, looked over his shoulders up to the little detective, who he right now considered one of the most evil things in the world. In this moment, his pokerface was pretty much forgotten. "Don't. You. Dare!", he hissed through clenched teeth, voice still the Kid's, but it got a slight edge to it.

But Conan just untangled the thief's tail from the prop, shifting his own tail happily. "Sorry, too late.", he just said and watched the thief falling down into the water and chuckled.

As Kid felt the small hands moving his tail, a cold chill, which had nothing to do with him being wet, went through his body and the next thing he knew was, that he was hitting the waters surface again, but now instantly struggled to get out of the water full of these little evil things. His head broke through the surface and he gasped for air, not so much from the suffocation, but more from the fear.

To watch the magician in such a fear was for the shrunken detective quiet amusing. "Ne, you really hate water, don't you?", he asked and wondered if he just didn't like the cold water or if it were the things, which were swimming in it.

The thief all but *glared* up at the little brat above him. "I already fell into too much water to hate it, thank you very much.", he said and got the hell out of the fish infested water, back on all fours onto the prop. He looked now like a rather large and irritated, let's not forget wet cat, his tail twitching behind him.

Conan still grinned, because he had really fun watching the thief. "Already had enough of the water?", he asked and his grin went bigger, "I wouldn't mind to send you into the water one more time.", and enjoyed to see the thief on all fours an all wet.

"You would, huh...", he grumbled and suddenly launched forward to catch the little detective and dragged him though the framework of the aquarium until they were out again.

He blinked when he suddenly dragged him. "H-Hey! I can walk on my own, okay? Lemme down!", he yelled and tried to get free what didn't really help and his ears dropped.

"I sure do know that, Tantei-kun!", Kid said grinning from ear to ear.

"Then let me down!", the shrunken detective yelled again.

Just then, the thief ran over the edge of the building and letting gravity befall them.

Conan blinked when he ran over the edge of the building.

"Should I really do that, now?", he asked, grinning widely as they fell.

He gulped and didn't say anything and started to hold on to Kaito.

Kid laughed silently as he opened his glider and soared through the air only seconds later.

He glared at the thief quiet annoyed."Stupid thief...", he muttered.

"You deserved it!", he replied happily.

"You were the one who ran first on the roof of that aquarium. Where are we going anyway?", he asked and looked to him.

"Well, I did plan to just drop you off somewhere, since I still have them gem...", he replied grinning.

"Great...", he muttered, "It'd be nice if that wouldn't be the end of the city."

"I see...so the agency would be nice?", Kid asked casually.

"That'd be unexpected friendly of the thief.", he said and watched him with raised brows.

"I can drop you off here as well!", he said and grinned and just flew a little lower to demonstrate what he had just said.

Conan noticed that they lost height and gulped. "I mean, that'd be so nice of you as always!", he quickly told him, smiling like an innocent child.

The thief nicked, smirking. "I knew you'd say that~", he said and flew higher again."

The shrunken detective who was still holding on to Kid mumbled something and could see the agency after a while and got an idea and smirked.

Kid flew lower again and prepared himself to drop the detective off. His hands grabbed the smaller boy under his arms to get him off of him just before they were over the agency.

When Kaito wanted to drop him off, Conan just grabbed him more and didn't think to let go and grinned.

Kid pulled and was surprised, when he didn't got off. "Oi! Let go!", he exclaimed. By that time, they flew already past the agency's roof.

"Forget it!", he yelled back grinning and also tangled his tail around him so he wouldn't get loose for sure. "I am beginning to enjoy this flight, really."

Kid glared down at his little passenger. "You little...", he murmured and tried to separate the detective from him.

Conan kept holding on to him permanently, and didn't even though of loosing grip.

As they struggled like this, Kid hadn't even noticed, that his glider was unbalanced and a strong gust of wind hit them in the side and caught his glider, they got swirled down near one of the nearby rooftops. Kid let his hands off the little detective and hoped he was wise enough to just jump off to avoid the crash.

The detective also didn't notice, just when the thief let his hands off he wondered and widened his eyes when he saw that they were crashing and let go close before the crash.

Kid just felt the weight vanish from his chest and the next moment, he already slammed down on the rooftop with a scream as his head hit the floor, blacking out after that.

Conan fell to the ground with no scratches but got worried because of Kid. 'Ouch... hope he's not injured that bad..', he thought and ran to him. He noticed that he lost consciousness and checked him for any injuries. 'Seems like it's not that bad...Anyway, he had hit probably his head on the ground...'

There was a slight gush of blood on the Kid's left side of the head, sticking his hair together, but it wasn't much. A smear of blood could also be found a few feet away from where the thief lay on the ground.

He noticed the wound on his head after he checked his head carefully. 'Hm..the wound doesn't seem so bad..', and looked to the thief face. ' Could be a chance to get know his real face...', he thought.

He thought about that option for a while and couldn't stop his curiosity and knelt down to him and slowly took off the monocle, because the cylinder already fell of before from the crash. He looked at his face, kinda surprised how similar he looked to the detective's real self.

The Kid's eyes twitched slightly at the contact, but he didn't wake up from that. He felt as if he was in some kind of semi consciousness, surrounded by black and some smoke that swirled around. The thief's tail would itself lazily around the monocle holding hand, but then unwound itself as slowly as well and well on the ground again with a slight grunt from the Kid.

Conan looked surprised at the tail of the other and thought it'd be the best to put the monocle back, and so he did. 'Think it'd be better if I stay here till he wakes up..', he thought and yawned.

It took some time for Kid to regain consciousness again, but when he did, he first sneezed slightly, because he was still a little wet. His eyes slowly opened, but his sight was totally unfocused. He saw a somewhat colourful blur in front of him and groaned slightly as he remembered the accident. He wanted to get up, but his muscles didn't want to move at all, so he just fell down again and panted slightly.

Conan watched at the thief for a while and got pretty tired, because it was soon morning already. "Ne, shall I call someone for you?", he asked, after he watched how the thief tried to stand up with no success.

The thief looked confused at him and it took some time to let the question register. He slowly shook his head and the free arm, that was not half pinned under his body, slowly reached into his jacket and pulled his mobile phone out. "Not necessary...", he croak out, "I know who to call...", he said and stared at his phone. His mind was still clouded and he could really think.

He watched him and sighted. "You were unconsciousness for quiet a while. Seems like that crash was pretty hard. You also hurt your head."

He nodded in response and cursed, as his head hurt from the movement and he needed to close his eyes for a short time. His sight became clearer now and he could see the little detective better. But he also noticed that it was already morning. 'Shit...Jii-chan must be worried sick about me...mum probably as well, if I don't show up soon.', he thought and used all his strength and concentration to get into a sitting position. He looked back to his cellphone again and typed a message for the elder man to pick him up here.

Conan notice that the thief had to really tired and stood up again. "Well then, if someone will come to pick you up I can leave I guess.", he said and looked to the thief who was sitting now.

Kid looked at him again and the clouds in his head slowly faded away. "Say, Tantei-kun...if I have been unconscious for so long and you were here the whole time...I don't think you could resist the urge to look who I really am...am I right?", he asked with a flat voice and raised an eyebrow at the shrunken detective.

He looked at him and after a while of silence he sighted. "Guess you got me. You're right, I couldn't resist. Sorry for that. But don't worry, I won't call you Kid if I see you in public. And I also dunno your name...", he said and looked at the thief and smiled, "Well, not yet."

The thief just looked at him, then sighed and dropped his head. "Alright...that's acceptable...", he said and stared at the ground.

He looked at him and sighed. "Don't worry, I also won't tell anyone of course. I just want to catch you like it should be."

Kid took a glance at him and grinned slightly. "My, what an honest detective you are..."

"You should be happy that I'm thinking this way. I bet Nakamori-keibu would just love to see your true face.", he mumbled.

There was a short flicker of regret in the kaitou's eyes, but it was soon replaced by the Kid's usual grinning pokerface. "I bet on that as well...", he said and chuckled.

"I better go now.", he said and went to the exit-door of the roof. "Guess we'll see each other at your next heist.", and waved his hand short before he left the roof.

Kid watched the little detective go and sighed after the door was closed. 'Great...now he knows about my cat problem AND knows my real face! Guess the heist couldn't have ended worse...no, scratch that, it could have. I could be dead or in jail. Got lucky that Tantei-kun has this honest side to him...I guess it would have been seven times worse if it had been Hakuba, who was here the whole time. He's quite honest as well, but I'm not sure just how much...'

"..........."

'Should stop thinking so much...it huuurts!', he thought again and just flopped back to the ground. After some time, the door to the rooftop opened again and he could see a very surprised Jii standing in the doorway. He flashed him a short grin and sat up again.

Jii had been surprised at the ears and the tails and the fact, that the teen had just lay there on the rooftop, without his hat. "Everything alright, Kaito-bochama?", he asked worried, but Kaito just sighed and nodded. "Yes...I'll tell you later...", he said and stood up to retrieve his hat. He placed it back on his head with a slight grin. Although his head still hurt like hell, he could still put on a performance. Not long and not exhausting, but still. "Let's go, Jii-chan...I think you would be surprised at what had happened this night...", he told the man and they went down to Jii's car.


	5. Aftermath: Shopping

**Catboys**

**Chapter Five:** Aftermath: Shopping

by **Phantom-Akiko** and **Vampire-KIDDO**

thanks to **hallow777** for beta-reading

**Attention: **This chapter is long! Really! ôo Double length than most of the chapters. And we had also so much fun writing this xD

* * *

Conan was on his way back to the agency which wasn't too far. When he came in he saw that Ran had fallen asleep on the couch in the living-room and sighed. 'Probably waited for me till she was too tired...', he thought and put a blanket over her and smiled softly. After that he quickly went to bed in his room and it didn't take long for him to fall asleep.

Conan was sleeping pretty good. Probably because he was awake all night long and also had a lot of trouble of getting through, but not so much as Kid had. In the morning Ran woke up after a while and noticed, with some surprise, the blanket that was covering her. Then she remembered that she was waiting for Conan and hurried quietly to Conan's room and looked through a little crack in the door and saw him sleeping. She sighed relieved and closed the door again. "Yokata..", she whispered because she had been really worried about him yesterday.

-

Kaito had made it back to his house, mostly explaining all the events that took place that night. He changed clothes in the car and he was finished with explaining as they reached the Kuroba estate. He felt already more and more tired and exhausted and greeted his worried mother with a huge yawn, which definitely didn't make her worry disappear. But when she asked what had happened, he told her that he was too tired for answering that and went without another word up the stairs and into his room, where he flopped himself onto his bed and instantly passed out again. When his mother entered the room, she just sighed and changed his clothes for him, put him under the blanket and went down again, where Jii was waiting in the kitchen. He told her what her son had told him only minutes earlier.

-

Conan slept until 2 pm and was still tired after waking up. 'Lucky for me, today is Saturday...', he thought and stood up to change his clothes. After that he went downstairs and searched for Ran.

Ran was busy talking to Sonoko on the phone, when she noticed that Conan was finally awake. She waved at him and smiled, but held a finger in front of her lips and continued the talk.

The tired detective looked at her smile. 'Seems like she isn't mad.. I hope.' he thought and went into the kitchen to get himself something to drink and to eat.

When Ran was done talking to Sonoko, she searched for her house guest and found him in the kitchen. "There you are...are you alright?", she asked worried.

He looked at Ran and nodded smiling. "Yes, I'm okay.", he told her.

"You were pretty late yesterday...when did you come home?"

"Uhm.. not sure.. around 5 am?", he said and hope she wouldn't yell at him.

"W-what?", she asked quite shocked an her eyes widened. "You were out this late? Have you chased after Kid all that time?", she scolded him.

"Well, it took longer as I thought but I'm really fine.", he told her again.

She looked down at him for a while longer and made sure, that he was telling the truth. Then sighed and nodded. "Alright, but you should know, that I'm not comfortable with that!"

"Thanks Ran-neechan!", he said in a sweet children's voice, "Next time it won't last so long...", he added.

She nodded and smiled then. "Alright, but now eat something and then get ready, will you? I promised Sonoko, that I would go shopping with her. And 'tousan is not here, so you have to come along.", she explained to him.

He didn't want to go shopping at all, but didn't have the energy to argue with her and sighed. "Okay.. I'll get ready...", he mumbled and went upstairs into his room again and got ready.

Ran prepared herself as well and then waited for Conan to come down.

After a short while Conan came also down and together they went to the shopping mall to meet Sonoko.

It was quite new and large, so it attracted a lot of young people. They met the blond girl in front of the entrance, where she was waving at them from far away. As she saw that, Ran smiled and waved back at her.

Together they went through the shops and Conan got pretty bored and wasn't really in the mood for all that.

Ran and Sonoko still were very exited and never dulled because of their young charge's misery. They had their bags full of clothes and other thinks boys would usually claim to be useless, when they had finished going through the first few stores.

Conan was quiet annoyed by Sonoko, because he had to carry her bags, and he was already tired. He was lucky that he only had to carry two of her bags, though.

After a while, Ran had suggested to get some rest, especially for Conan and Sonoko agreed after a while. They searched and found a nice ice cream parlour. While they looked for a place, they needed to go through the whole thing, because it was pretty crowded. Conan was relieved that he could finally take a break and helped looking for a place. When Ran spotted a more secluded place by accident, she stopped cold at what she saw there. Behind her, Sonoko stopped as well and looked for the source of Ran's bother. When she spotted the pair, her eyes went wide and she caught her breath.

Conan noticed that Ran stopped suddenly and looked into the direction she was staring at and blinked surprised. 'Wait.. isn't that..', he wondered.

Ran wanted to know if that was some kind of joke, but couldn't move. Then, her friend complained something about untrustworthy and deceptive detectives and rushed for her friends sake to the young man, who was sitting at that table, chatting happily with a young woman.

Conan blinked when he heard Sonoko and gulped. 'Wait.. they think it's me?', he thought and noticed that the blond girl was already on her way to the young man.

-

Aoko was happy that she was able to make Kaito come with her. Well, he didn't really have a choice, because she also had her mop when she stood in front of his door in the morning. And after a while shopping they sat down at some nice place. She laughed and noticed Sonoko, who was coming to them and that she was also glaring at Kaito. "Ne, have you done something stupid again?", she asked and looked at Kaito.

Kaito was surprised at her sudden question and his sensible ears picked up frantic steps coming towards him. "Uhhh...no?", he answered reluctantly and looked over to the now looming blond girl before him. He recognized her of course, but wondered what the Suzuki girl would want from him, when she started to rant at him.

"Kudo-kun! What the hell is this? You are cheating on Ran, you bastard! How could you after she waited for you so long?" At that, Kaito blinked and linked eyes with a certain detective and then looked apologetic to Sonoko again. "I'm sorry, but I think this is a mistake...my name's not Kudo." But the huff and the expression on the girl's face showed that she didn't believe him. "Oh, sure...just change your hair and your voice a little and I wouldn't see through that?", she asked and huffed again, "Seriously..."

Aoko looked surprised at Sonoko and wondered what she was talking about. "Kudo?", she asked, "Sorry, but this time he really says the truth.", she explained and hoped that Sonoko believed that. "Or did you disguise again or played some trick on her?", she asked and glared at Kaito.

"No! I did not!", he exclaimed and Sonoko looked a little less sure now.

Conan had watched them and sweat-dropped while they were talking. 'Brilliant conclusion, Sonoko..', he thought and sighed. "Ne, Ran-neechan? Maybe we should go to Sonoko-neechan. I don't think he's Shinichi-niisan, after all he's still busy with his case...", he told her.

Ran woke up from her 'Shinichi is dating another girl-daze' and looked down at him. "Uh...well, it could be...", she said reluctant.

'Thanks for trusting me...', he thought ironic.  
Conan and Ran went to them and the little detective looked to the thief from yesterday, 'Weird coincidence...', he just thought and looked to Sonoko.

"Hm...well, I heard the name Kudo but that's definitely not his name.", Aoko then said and pointed at Kaito.

Kaito looked for an instant at the detective and then looked away. He didn't want to tell him his name like this, but the looks on the girls' faces told him, that he should introduce him as soon as possible. So, he sighed and stood up in front of them. "No, my name is Kaito Kuroba.", he said with a smile and successfully kept his uneasiness out of his expressions. "Nice to meet you!", he finally said and made two roses pop out and held them in front of the two girls. "For the two beauties here!"

The two girls blushed and took the roses. From the look of their faces, they were finally convinced, that he wasn't the detective. Especially Sonoko who blushed heavily and was excited.

Conan could already imagine that the thief didn't really want to say his name in front of him and was happy when he finally said it. 'Kuroba.. think I heard that before...', he thought and looked to the two roses and gave him an annoyed glare.

The shrunken detective just mumbled something silently and didn't like to see the thief flirting with his childhood friend.

Aoko looked to Ran and the boy and could already imagine that this was that Ran. She wondered if the little boy was her brother or something, but he did look similar to Kaito when he was around his age. "He thinks he's a super-magician but he only likes to play tricks on others.", she said and looked to the two roses.

"But that was just awesome!", Sonoko said and beamed. Kaito grinned in response and sat down again.

"Better not tell him that. Or he'll get cocky pretty quickly .", she said and looked from the two girls to Kaito again, who just grinned at that.

Ran smiled at them, glad that this hadn't been Shinichi after all, but the magician still reminded her of her childhood friend. "Say...would it be a bother if we joined you? The other tables are all full...but if we would bother you...", she trailed off.

"Hm?", she looked around and also noticed that all the tables were full. "Sure, there are enough seats for everyone. ", she said smiling.

Kaito wasn't that happy to have the detective here as well, but smiled approving, when they sat down. Ran thanked them and they took a look at the menu.

Conan could imagine that Kaito didn't like that but he wasn't sure either what the thief would tell Ran.  
"Well, my Name is Aoko Nakamori.", she introduced herself then and smiled.

"My name is Ran Mori and this is Conan Edogawa.", Ran said. "My name is Sonoko Suzuki.", the blond replied.

"Sooo...", Kaito said and leaned over the table, facing mostly Ran. "Did you have fun shopping? I'm surprised you aren't in male company. I do know that ladies like it when the males carry their bags. Don't tell me such lovely ladies don't have boyfriends." He grinned just a little at that and noticed how the two flushed again. "No no...", Sonoko said, "Ran does have one, but he's constantly away. You look very similar to him by the way, why don't you try to hit on her?" At that comment, Ran blushed a deep crimson and looked shocked at her friend. "S-Sonoko! We're not in that kind of relationship! And stop trying to get me together with random guys!"

Conan looked to Kaito while he was talking and glared at him. Annoyed, more than before. 'He's annoying even when he's not on a heist...', he thought and blushed a little when Sonoko called him Ran's boyfriend again but was more focused on Kaito, who looked like he was having fun. Then he looked at the girl next to him, and wondered if she was the friend he was talking about, who knows about the cat stuff. 'His grin will sure disappear when that stuff pops out..', he thought and smirked.

While Conan planned his own little revenge, Kaito continued talking with the two other girls. He hadn't noticed the looks the little detective gave him, but could imagine them well enough.

Conan looked up to Aoko, who was sitting next to her and pulled at her shirt. She looked down to him and smiled at him. "What is it?", she asked smiling and bent down to Conan who was whispering something in her ear, "Can I ask you a favour?"

She looked surprised at him, but nodded. "Sure, what is it?", she asked curious.

He looked at Kaito who was still busy with chatting with the two other girls and looked to Aoko again. "Could you tease Kaito for me? We already met before and he was teasing me...", he said with sad child's voice and looked with big eyes at her. "I already know what to do, you just have to do it for me."

"Wha...he was?", she whispered in surprise and took a look towards the magician, who still entertained the other girls. "That idiot!", she cursed him and looked back to Conan again. "Alright...what have you thought of?", she asked curious.

He nodded an told her more. "Well, he told me before about this cat thing...and I have the same problem..", he said and sighed, "and the stuff also popped out when we met and he was quiet annoyed by that, so you just have to make it pop out."

"Oh!", she was very surprised, when he told her that he had the same problem as well. She never thought that there was anyone else with this sort of problem. "I...can do that, but I promised Kaito that I wouldn't tell anyone...", she said and glanced at the other girls.

"Huh?", he looked to Ran and Sonoko and smiled. "Don't worry, they already know."

"Really?", she asked surprised and looked at them again. "Well, then...", she grinned and looked at Kaito again.

Aoko looked at him with a big grin. "Hey, Kaito! Look here!", she said and suddenly waved that stick in front of his face.

Kaito turned his head around in surprise and wondered what she wanted to show him. As he saw the moving stick again, the cat appendages popped out again and he stared in shock. Ran gasped in surprise and Sonoko only managed a 'Uh?' at the sight of the ears. The tail moved behind his back, only sometimes coming into sight. "Wha...why did you do that?", he asked her in shock. "I thought you promised NOT to do that!"

"How could you tease an innocent little boy?!", she asked, ignoring his questions and pointed to Conan, who looked innocently at Kaito.

He glared down at said boy. "Tease?", he asked, a hint of malice in his voice. "That brat was the one who teased ME, so just you know!"

"As if a little boy like him could do something to you.", she said and put the stick away from his face and put her hands on her hips. She didn't notice that she accidentally held the stick right in front of Conan's face and caused his ears and tail to pop out. "Ah..!", he said as he noticed that and sweat-dropped. 'Great...'

Kaito grinned in satisfaction as the detective's ears and tail popped out as well. "Well...so much for that...", he teased him with a grin.

He glared at the thief and sighed."Shut up...", he mumbled. When Aoko noticed that she turned to Conan and blinked. "Oh, sorry!", she apologized but had to admit that he did look really cute as well.

Then, Sonoko cleared her throat and looked at them. "Could anyone explain me what's going on here?", she asked.

He looked to Sonoko and tried to smile. "Uh.. well, some weird scientist kidnapped us and did something that causes this stuff to pop out sometimes..", he explained in a short version.

She blinked in surprise. "Uhhh...okay.", she said, but was still dumbfounded. "So, you're what...part cat? Catboys?"

He blinked. "Hey, don't call me a catboy! That's embarrassing!", Conan exclaimed.

"It's the truth, right?", she said and grinned.

Aoko was kinda confused that Sonoko was so surprised. "I thought you also knew about that?", she wondered and looked to Sonoko.

She look confused to Aoko and shook her head. "No, that's the first time I saw them or heard about that.", she explained. "See? The brat can lie as well...", Kaito whispered in her ear.

Aoko looked surprised to Sonoko and then to Kaito. "Hm...", She took another look at Conan who was looking at her again with those big and innocent child's eyes. "But I'm sure you teased him... he's just a kid, how could he tease you."

Kaito sighed. He leaned nearer to her ear and hold his hand near his mouth, so that no one else could hear him. "Don't say anything out loud, okay? I don't want him to hear, but...", he fumbled for words, "...he teased me with f-fish...", he managed to say. "But he also doesn't really know that...he just thinks I'm scared of water, so don't tell anyone!", he whispered in her ear.

She looked at him surprised and listened. After a while thinking Aoko nodded. "Okay, I won't tell anyone. But I can't really imagine that this little boy could harm you.."

"Yeah, yeah...", he said and nodded. "I know it sounds weird, but...don't bother yourself with that any more, okay?", he asked suddenly and smiled nervously. 'It would be better like this as if we start talking about why he was chasing after me yesterday of all times and we fell into a aquarium from the rooftop above it, which would lead to the question why he was chasing me over rooftops at all...'

"Hm.. okay, as long you won't tease him again..", she said and watched him with raised brows. She still wondered how they knew each other anyway, even though Kaito said she shouldn't think about it any more."Although you say he also teased you, you should apologize to him.", he told him.

"Eh..?" He looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Completely. Which he, at just this moment, thought. "No way...", he muttered. "I went through more horror...", he whispered.

"Even though he scared you, he's only a little boy!", she said a little upset. "Is it really too much to apologize?"

'If you only KNEW, Aoko! He is definitely NOT a little boy! Stupid shrunken detective! He wants the authority of an adult when he's acting like an innocent child! Argh!', he mentally made a face. "One word: Yes!", he whispered to her. "And I wont change it! Even if you come with those...scaly things after me!", he added as well.

Aoko looked at him and sighed. "Geez, that's childish...", she mumbled, "To be so upset about a little child..", and took another look to Conan, who looked at her with a sweet smile ,when he noticed she was looking at him.

Kaito just rolled his eyes at that innocent act and her persistence. 'Fine...then I'm childish...it's not like nobody has ever told me that yet...Akako did, Hakuba did, our whole class did, the Task Force plus Nakamori did...heck, even Aoko has said that...dunno how much, but it was quite often...', he thought and sighed.

When Aoko looked away from the little detective, he grinned at the thief again and his eyes met the annoyed blue pair of eyes from Kaito. The little detective looked forward to Ran again and behaved like the innocent child he looked like and Kaito sighed, shrugged and got a relaxed expression onto his face.

The girls kept talking for a while and seemed to have fun. Conan just sat there, sometimes taking a look at the thief and his ears and tail disappeared after a while again, so he was quiet happy about that. With time, Kaito's ears and tail had disappeared as well.

"By the way, may I ask where this Kudo-kun is? The one you thought Kaito was?", Aoko ask after a while and looked at the girls.

At the question, Ran blinked at her and blushed a little. "Well, he's my childhood friend-" "Husband!" "-and...SONOKO!", Ran yelled and looked furiously at her friend, her face bright red. After seeing her friend just grinning at her like normal, she sighed and turned back to Aoko again, face still red around her cheeks. Conan looked at Ran when Aoko asked that and got also a little red when Sonoko called him again her 'husband'.

"Never mind that, we DO NOT HAVE a relationship like that. The mystery freak is just absent because of a case for so long now. So, it was quite a shock for me, when I saw Kuroba-kun here, because they look so much alike...", she said and looked over to Kaito, who just blinked a little in surprise. 'Does she always have to say mystery freak?', Conan thought a little annoyed and took a short look at Kaito since he himself had also noticed that yesterday. 'Well, she is right with that. He really DOES look a lot like me..', But he had already noticed the day before.

"I thought he was lying to me about the case thing and was enjoying himself here..." "...with a girl! So she thought he was cheating on her.", added Sonoko with a grin. "SONOKO! Stop that!", Ran told her and was flushed again. Conan glared annoyed at Sonoko and also got a bit red on his cheeks.

"Well, I'd like to meet him. I bet he's more accrue than Kaito. He's just a magic-freak who likes to plays tricks on people.", Aoko said and watched at Kaito.

'Well, fits pretty much to Kid...', Conan added in thoughts.

"Oi, I can be nice as well!", Kaito protested and glared annoyed at her. "And it's not called magic-freak, but magician! Just so you know that!"

"Yea, but that's rare.", she said and grinned at him,

He muttered something incomprehensible under his breath for that comment.

"And I'll still call you magic-freak. They're just tricks anyway, not real magic or something.", she said and grinned at him.

"If I could do real magic, I would be a wizard.", he said and rolled her eyes. "Mop-girl...", he said and grinned slightly.

"Right, but you're just a magic-freak.", she grinned and hit him on the head for that comment, but not that hard.

"Ow! That hurt! You brute...", he complained to her.

"You deserved it..", she muttered. Conan chuckled as he saw the great thief being bullied by his child-hood friend.

As Kaito heard the chuckle, he glared down at the detective and then took a glance at Ran. Slowly he leaned forward onto the table again. "Ne, you said that that childhood friend of yours was a mystery-freak...aren't there other personality traits about him?", he asked curiously.  
Conan looked at Kaito and then to Ran. 'What? Hey, that' not fair!', he thought.  
Ran was thinking for a moment. "Well.. he's reliable, mostly, and good at spots and plays excellent soccer but he's also pretty cocky and loves to annoy others with his mystery stuff, especially Holmes!", she said and nodded, "And the worst is his singing!", she added.  
The shrunken detective just glared at Ran. 'What the...? Why does she has to describe me this bad..?', he thought, 'And did she have to say that I can't sing?'

As Kaito glanced over to Conan, he could see the little meitantei's look and snickered. He looked back to Ran immediately. "So...he's so much more accrue then me, huh?", he grinned and glanced over to Aoko.

Conan gave him a 'shut-up' look and sighed. "Don't know...you sure do have also other personality traits, right?", Ran asked and looked curiously at him.

Kaito just shot him a grin at that look and looked over to Ran at her question. "Oh, sure...but I guess these aren't so important." , he said and waved that aside.

"Hm...", she said and looked smiling to Conan. "Well, Conan-kun and Shinichi have really much in common. For example they both like Holmes.", she said smiling, "And they're also related, that's why Conan looks pretty much like Shinichi, when he was his age. But Shinichi was that time way more childish and bolder. Not like Conan.", and the shrunken Shinichi dropped. 'That's really starting to piss me off..', he thought and put on his child-smile when Ran was watching at him, even though he got quite annoyed.

"Ho...more childish and bolder?", Kaito asked grinning and sent a short smirk to Conan. "I would have loved to see that..."

'I'm sure you would...', he thought and sighed. Aoko listened to Ran and giggled. "Well, Kaito was kinda like that too, when he was in his age. Well, he still is.", she grinned.

Kaito blinked at her when she suddenly spoke. 'What...she isn't going to...', he thought just as his thoughts were interrupted by Ran. "Really? Well, Shinichi could also sometimes be like this, when he was babbling over Holmes again or playing soccer."

"But I bet it's not so worse like Kaito. Sometimes the whole class gets mad at him, because of some stupid trick.", she said grinning.

"Well, that'd be true. Shinichi would only be extremely bored in class, because he is oh so brilliant.", Ran said and rolled her eyes.

"Kaito also thinks he's a genius.", she said and looked to him with raised brows."But if he tease or annoys me, I'll always know how to make him shut up.", she grinned.

At that, Kaito looked at her warily and hoped she wouldn't go further into detail.

"Shinichi thinks the same...", Ran said and sighed. "I sometimes need to get him back to reality by a good punch or a kick...or I yell at him.", she said and remembered back to the times where it was still normal for Shinichi to be around.

'Yea, I do remember that, and also the pain...', Conan thought.

"What methods do you use, Aoko-chan?", Ran asked curiously.

"Well, I chase him with a mop or I scare him. Because he fears something, that is really ridiculous." She said grinning and wanted to go further on.

"Aoko!", he hissed in her ears. "What was that about your promise?", he asked and blushed a little out of embarrassment.

Just in that moment she wanted to say, 'He fears fish more than anything else!', when Kaito interrupted her.

"What? C'mon! You hardly know her or the others, so they can't tease you with that, like me.", she grinned, "Please, it's so funny!"

"No! Definitely not! It's embarrassing as hell! And you *promised*!", he whispered furiously in her ear.

She thought about and sighed. Aoko wouldn't break her promise, so she nodded. "Okay, I won't tell.", she said disappointed.

Kaito breathed out a huge sigh of relief. 'At least something...Tantei-kun still doesn't know anything about my fear.'

Conan was also disappointed, because Aoko didn't told what the great phantom thief feared most. 'I'm starting to get really curious about that...', he thought and looked at the thief.

Quickly, Kaito just stuck out his tongue out at the detective. Ran and Sonoko seemed disappointed as well, but didn't say anything. Ran was also very serious about keeping promises, because a certain detective so often didn't keep his.

Right now, Conan would just love to kick his soccer ball straight into his face. Too bad, that he couldn't.

"By the way, from which part of Tokyo are you from?", Aoko asked curiously and looked at Ran.

"Oh, we live in Beika. Were are you two from?", she asked curiously.

"Oh, no wonder I've never seen you at school. We're from Ekota.", she said smiling.

"Well, that is some way...", Ran said and imagined the way. "But this mall is also pretty huge and popular, so it's no wonder if we'd even meet people from outside Tokyo, I guess.", she said and snickered.

Aoko agreed by nodding. "True, I think it's the biggest one of them I know...", she said and thought about that for a moment.

"Hmmmm...well, I was in a lot of huge buildings until now, but I can't remember one of them being a mall like this.", she said and giggled. "Well, since we are so comfortable around each other...would you like to become friends with us? We could visit each other sometimes.", Ran suggested with a warm smile.

Aoko thought about that shortly and nodded smiling."That sounds great. I'd be really happy to meet with you again. Isn't that right, Kaito?", she asked and looked at him.

Kaito wasn't all too happy about all this and sighed, not letting his frustration show on his face. "Well, sure!", he said grinning. "As long as you don't use me as a pack mule while going shopping, there's no problem."

"You have to carry my stuff anyway.", she said grinning. Conan looked to Aoko and then to the thief and could imagine that he didn't like the idea. Well, he liked it actually, because he could get more information about the thief he was so curious about. And as long Ran doesn't do any embarrassing kiddy stuff with him, while he was watching it should be okay.

Kaito groaned in response. 'Really! Women! Can't they carry their stuff themselves...?', he wondered.

"Well, what do you think about, spending the rest of the shopping tour together?", Aoko asked then.

"Sure!", Ran answered and smiled. Sonoko, who listened to them with a big grin on her face nodded frantically as well. "That'll be fun!", she said and grinned.

Kaito just rolled with his eyes and sighed. 'One whole afternoon together with the shrunken detective...joy!', he thought sarcastically.

"Great!", Aoko smiled, "Then we should go soon, right?", she said and took a look on her watch.

At that, the other girls looked at their watch as well.

"Oh my! It's already that late? Let's hurry up!", Sonoko said and stood up. Ran stood up after her friend left for their bags and dragged Conan off of the bench the other three were sitting on.

Conan said nothing when she dragged him off. He got used to that, so. 'I just hope I don't have to carry Sonoko's bags again...', he thought and gave her an annoyed look.

Ran went over to Sonoko with him, who had quite a few bags in her hands already, but still shoved two of the small bags in Conan's direction. "Here, make yourself useful, squirt!"

"Geez...", he mumbled and took the two bags, before she get even more annoying. 'Hope they won't buy so much any more...', he thought and looked at the thief again.

Against what he wanted himself, he already picked up Aoko's stuff and hoped as well that she wouldn't buy anything more.

In a group they visited different stores and stayed longer at some fashion-clothing shop. The boys could just watch the three girl, picking ton of clothes. After a while they had enough, or they just couldn't carry more and went to the fitting-rooms. "You two can sit down on the couch.", Aoko said and pointed on the couch in front of the fitting-rooms. "Then we can also show you our clothes.", she trailed off and went with the others in. Conan sat with Kaito down and sighed. "I didn't think that this afternoon would end in watching the girls presenting their new clothes with you...", he mumbled.

"Did you think I did?", came the dry reply from the magician. "But if the girls want something, they usually get it as well...you know how they are...", he sighed. "So lets just keep them entertained enough, so that they wouldn't need to be entertained by us, when they make these things pop out again..."

"Hell no... it's already enough that Sonoko now also knows about me...", he sighed. "Your girlfriend actually just should make yours appear.."

"Ah...I see...", he said and gave him a pressed smirk. Before he could say anything else, however, the girls burst out of the changing room, dressed up. Kaito noticed with a blush that Aoko wore a dark blue dress, that ended shortly above the knees and he could see more skin than normally on her upper body, because her arms, shoulders and a part from her back were naked.

Ran came shortly after her out and wore a red dress, which also showed pretty much skin like Aoko's. Conan looked at them. Well, more at Ran also blushed.

"Y-You look great, Ran-neechan!", he said than after a while staring at her.

"Thanks Conan-kun!", she said and blushed a little from that comment.

"Ne, Kaito? What do you think about this one?", Aoko asked then and looked at him.

"Uh...", for the first time, the magician was at a loss for words as he looked at his dressed up childhood friend, "You look...beautiful...", he finally brought out and just after that he noticed what he had actually said and blushed.

Aoko blushed a little, to hear something like that from him and grinned when she saw him blushing again. "Kaito, you're blushing again~", she teased him.

He looked embarrassed up to her. "You shut up! That's your fault!", he exclaimed with red cheeks.

She giggled again on his reaction. "Ne, Ran-chan, let's go back and try the other dresses on."

"With pleasure!", she answered and giggled. Then, they left the boys sitting there again.

Conan looked after them, disappearing in the cabins again and looked at the thief and grinned a little. "The great thief really blushed."

"This cat thing is affecting my emotions...", he grunted out, "I can't keep a straight pokerface like that..."

"Hm... I see... must be tough for someone like you.", he said grinning. Conan himself didn't really notice any changes of his emotions, only that he loses control when he sees a ball, cat toy or anything like that.

"It's annoying!", he told the miniature detective, "And I can't even do anything against it!"

"Well, sorry for you..", he said and chuckled. It was quiet amusing to see him like that.

"Sorry you are...?", he asked him with a disbelieving look, "Sure..."

Conan smiled at him innocently, like a child, ignoring the ironic in the tone of the other one.

Kaito glared down at the little detective and wondered if he should do something embarrassing to him, when the girls saved Conan by bursting out yet again and wearing other beautiful dresses.

Again, both of them looked really beautiful Conan blushed again, when he looked at Ran. 'Wow...', he thought, didn't really know what to say. Aoko's dress looked also really great. This time it was a little longer, but still showed much skin.

Kaito blushed at their appearance as well and it seemed that their red faces and expressions already satisfied the girls, who instantly giggled again.

"So, you like it, don't you?", Aoko asked and looked grinning at Kaito after she stopped giggling.

He just nodded slowly while taking in her appearance. He wondered why she so rarely wore something so good. But then again, they rarely had the opportunity to dress up like this.

Aoko grinned satisfied. "Too bad that it's so expensive...", she sighed and took a look at the price.

"Oh...", he said a little disappointed. "What's the price?", he wondered and took a look at it.

"Well...", she said,"$399,99. Not in my price range at all.", she said and sighed.

"Ouch...yeah, I can understand that...who's selling clothes for such a price anyway?", he complained.

"Well, the brand is also famous for their high prices...", she said.

"Does someone buy this?", he wondered and took a look at the price again.

"Probably someone who is really rich...", she said and sighed.

"Yeah...", he could just answer and sighed. For once, he liked the designer dress. He just hoped that Aoko had a few more not so expensive things there as well.

Ran looked to Conan's red face and smiled lovely down at him. "So...is that nice as well?"

Conan blinked when she spoke to him and nodded. "Y-yes, it looks great!", he exclaimed.

She giggled slightly. "Do you think I get Shinichi to buy me this?", she asked with a blush across her face.

He blushed even more when she asked that. "D-dunno... ask him..?", he suggested.

"Oh, that's a good idea, Conan-kun!", she said and smiled. "Can you take a photo with my cellphone? I could send it to him, then."

"S-Sure...", she said and had a really bright red his face, when he remembered when Sonoko sent him a picture of Ran in a bikini.

Ran wondered about his red face, but couldn't guess why he blushed so much. "Okay, here...", she said and handed him her cellphone.

He took the phone and took a photo of Ran in the dress and gave her it back. "Is that okay?", he asked and looked up to her.

She looked at the picture and nodded. "I think this will do!", she said and wrote a short message and pressed send.

Conan was lucky that he turned off Shinichi's cellphone but blinked when Aoko called him 'Ran's boyfriend'.

She looked at Ran and grinned. "I'm sure your boyfriend will love it."

Kaito snickered as the detective's look, but kept his mouth still otherwise. It wouldn't do them both any good, if one of their secrets was discovered. Ran turned around to Aoko, blushing heavily. "I- I said he is NOT my boyfriend! We are just childhood friends!"

The shrunken detective gave Kaito an annoyed look.

"Right, your childhood friend..", Aoko said and giggled, "Let's try the next dresses on!", she added happily.

"With pleasure!", Ran sang happily and they went back into the dressing rooms.

Aoko followed her and Conan looked after them and took Shinichi's cell-phone out of his pocket and turned it on. Shortly after that he received Ran's Mail and looked at the picture again. 'What does she expect me to answer anyway?', he asked himself.

Kaito snickered and glanced to the message. "So...you gonna buy this..?", he whispered in the detective's ear.

He blushed immediately and looked to the thief next to him. "That's none of you business!", he exclaimed.

"Look who's blushing now!", he said and his razor sharp grin dared to split his face in half.

"Shut up!", he muttered and put his cell-phone away and decided to answer the message later and to ignore the stupid thief.

Said thief snickered again and greatly enjoyed the look on the detective's face.

He tried to ignore that too and looked at the girls who came out after a few minutes with other dresses, which looked again fabulous.

After commenting on them again, they continued this a few times until the boys were more exhausted than the girls.

After a while they were finally ready and Conan was happy, so the thief couldn't tease him any more. "How much are you gonna buy from that stuff?", he asked Ran when she came out of the cabin with the dresses.

"Oh...a few of the not so expensive stuff...and there only the things that looked really good.", she said and smiled.

He nodded. "And are you gonna buy that dress too, which you showed to Shinichi-niisan?", he asked.

"Well...I don't have that much money with me...", Ran said a little embarrassed. "That's the reason I asked him..."

He looked at her and nodded. 'Well...It wouldn't hurt to pay a part of it...', he thought, "I gotta go to the toilet!", he said then and hurried off. When he was there, he pulled his cellphone out again, and texted her back.

'I don't think this sounds like a pervert...at least I hope so...', he thought and pressed send.

Kaito glanced over to Aoko and went to her. "And? What're you going to buy from that?", he wondered.

"Well, like Ran-chan. But the cheaper dresses are also really nice.", she said smiling.

"Ah...I see!", he said and nodded in approval.

"And you're going to carry my bags, right?", she asked smiling at him.

Kaito glared at her demand and rolled his eyes. "Fine...this time!", he agreed.

"Thanks, I appreciate that very much.", she said grinning.

Kaito was surprised when Ran's phone suddenly ringed. 'Ah, yes...Tantei-kun just went to the toilet, right? I bet he didn't what you usually do there...', he thought and grinned.

"Nice dress.

Let's say I'll pay the half."

Aoko looked over to Ran. "Oh, did he answer?", she asked curious.

Ran nodded and blushed a little. "Yes...he said he would pay half of the price...", she said and smiled.

"Lucky girl..", she said smiling, "Kaito wouldn't pay, it's also enough for him to carry my bags..", she said and glanced over to him.

He glared back at her and shrugged. He guessed he could pay one of her dresses as well, but she didn't ask for it, right? Right!

Ran then thought about Shinichi's suggestion, but then nodded. She then remembered that Shinichi couldn't see her and texted back.

"Thank you!  
So, I will buy it from my money now and you give me the money back later, okay?

Thanks again!  
xxx  
Ran"

It didn't take long when the answer arrived at Shinichi's phone and he raised his brows in confusion, scratching his head. 'Again this xxx... ', he thought and sighed, not sure, what to think about that.

Conan also came back and watched the girls chatting, but was still thinking about this damn 'xxx'.

Kaito then saw the little detective again and wondered what could get him into such deep thought.

Sonoko came also back to them, in a good mood, probably because of all the dresses she held in her hands. "Well, I guess we can go paying for the clothes, hm?", she asked and looked to the others.

They both nodded and went to buy the clothes they'd picked, leaving the two guys alone.

Kaito looked after them and then glanced down at the detective, who seemed to be still in thought.

"Oi, what's up with you?", he asked and bend down. "Got a clue on a case or what?"

The little detective still thought about that and looked surprised to the thief. "Huh? Erh... no, nothing like that...", he said and looked around. "Where are the girls?", he asked him.

He raised an eyebrow at that. 'Had the detective been that much in thought?', he wondered. "They went to buy the clothes they chose...", he answered with a shrug.

"Hm... I see..", he said and looked to Kaito, "So they left me again with the thief alone..", he sighed and thought. If he'd asked him about the mysterious 'X' and Kaito knew what it means, he could imagine that the thief would make fun of him.

"Am I troubling you that much?", Kaito asked in a very annoyed tone.

"I just know, that you like to fool around with people.", he said and grinned a little. "Well, I'm sure, that I'm more troubling for you than you for me.", he said and chuckled.

He glared down at him and decided not to answer that one. It was for the best, he thought.

He grinned and then, again, he thought about that damn 'X'.

"Ne...", he said finally after a while of silence, "I have a question. But don't laugh or anything!", he warned him.

A very curious look flickered across his face and he raised an eyebrow. "I'll try.", he said and smiled innocently.

He thought again about it, if he should really asked him that, and so he just did. "Uhm... do you know what 'xxx' means?", he asked.

"Oh, you mean what girls like to use in letters and SMS?", he asked curiously. "Yeah, I do. What about it?"

Conan nodded. "Well... Ran wrote that again, and I still don't really know, what she means with that.", he said a little embarrassed.

Now, he raised both of his eyebrows and grinned down at him. "How sweet!", he cooed and Conan sweat-dropped at that comment.

Kaito bend down to him, so that he could whisper directly into his ear. "Each x means a kiss...I would bet she was blushing madly when writing that...", he said and chuckled.

Conan listened to the thief when he told him the meaning of x and blushed. "W-What? Are you sure?", he asked him.

He nodded. "Sure! As how much I'm disguising myself as girls, I should know it, huh?"

"Yeah... Ran was already enough. And the clumsy maid was already too much.", he commented and blushed still at the thought that ran always sent him three kisses. 'What does she expect me to say to that anyway?', he asked himself.

He snickered at that. "But isn't it cuuute?", he asked innocently.

"Yes, of course.", he said ironic. "I bet you have disguised as your childhood friend too.."

He thought once about it and then nodded once, "Yeah, but only a few seconds to throw her father off...", he said and grinned.

"Lovely..", he commented dryly."Well... still better, than disguising as me."

"Even better than disguising as Mouri-chan?", he asked grinning.

He blushed again and snorted. "Just shut up...", he muttered.

He giggled and then shut up as he saw the girls walking towards them again.

Aoko and Ran both smiled happily and looked to the boys. "We're finished here.", she said smiling, "Let's go to the next store!"

Kaito looked kind of shocked to her as he heard that. "Next store...? You are kidding! You aren't done yet?"

She giggled at that reaction. "You know, just trying on clothes is also fun.", she smiled innocently, "Maybe we can find a sale!", she beamed.

He groaned as he heard that. 'Please...someone save me!', he thought but knew as well, that the chance of saving was little to zero.

"C'mon! hurry up!", Aoko said and dragged Kaito out and searched for the next store, while the little tantei just followed them with Ran.

Kaito had the feeling that the shopping went on and on and it seemed as if nothing could stop the girls. From what he saw, the chibi tantei had just as much fun as he had.

Conan didn't really have fun. And to him, it seemed like they would spend the rest of the day going through stores. "Ran-neechan? When are we going to be finished?", he asked in a sweet child's voice, hoping that will affect Ran.

She looked down at him with what seemed to be a slightly worried glance in her eyes. "My...are you too tired from shopping?", she asked with a worried voice and knelt down on front of him.

He kept playing his cute-child's act and nodded. "Yea, kinda. Maybe just a little break? We've been looking around for clothes for quite some time now..."

Her face lit up at what he said. "Well, yeah! Why not? That's a splendid idea, Conan-kun! I know a nice little café a few meters away. I'm sure Aoko-chan will like it as well!"

"Great!", little Conan-kun agreed and smiled happily. Just then Aoko noticed that Ran and Conan weren't following them any more and went back to them. "Is something wrong with him?", she asked.

Ran looked up to her new friend and shook her head. "Well, it seems as if he is a little tired from all our shopping, so we decided to have a break.", she explained with a soft smile. Kaito, who was now leaning over Aoko's shoulder leered down at him. "So, if he is so tired, he would need to go to bed, soon...right?"

Conan glared up to Kaito and swore in thoughts. "I'm not THAT tired.", he said, "Just a little break would be nice.". Aoko thought about that and nodded. "I think a little break is a good idea!", she agreed.

He giggled and grinned at the detective's antics and went to follow the girls, particularly Aoko, to the café she mentioned.

Conan also followed them, trying to ignore the thief. When they arrived they all sat down and looked at the menu.

Kaito couldn't just not mention to the detective that they had kid's menus here as well, while the two girls blinked confused at him.

Again, Conan gave him an annoyed look and kicked the thief's leg under the table, so the girls couldn't see it, and smiled innocently.

He quickly got his legs out of kicking range, looked straight at the detective and snickered.

'Stupid thief...', he thought again and imagined how he'd love to kick a ball right in his face. Then Conan thought about using his sweet child's line at Aoko again. He already used it once, though..

Kaito's grin slowly changed into a frown as he noticed that Conan seemed to be planning something again. 'He's looking THAT way at Aoko again...wait...does he wants those things to appear again?', he wondered and watched the detective closely.

After some thoughts, he grinned and pulled at Aoko's shirt again, looking at her with big innocent child-eyes. "Aoko-neechan..?", he said in a really cute voice.

Aoko looked down from her conversation with Ran and looked down at the little boy. She was a little confused at the big eyes, but found them really cute. "What is it, Conan-kun?", she asked sweetly.

"Kaito-niisan teased me again...", he said in a whiny tone, "Could you let his ears pop out one more time..?", he asked in a lower voice.

Kaito had strained his ears to listen to the conversation, but the damn brat was whispering in Aoko's ear, so he couldn't hear what he said. When she heard that, Aoko looked with an angry look to Kaito suddenly and he made an unintentional twitch back from her. "W-what...?", he asked her wearily, guessing for the worst.

Conan still played the roll of the hurt child, but was grinning evilly in his mind. 'You're not the only one with acting skills...', he thought and chuckled in thoughts.

Kaito threw the detective one glare, but looked surprised at Aoko again, as she suddenly stood up and grabbed the front of his shirt over the table and yanked him up. "You come with me...", she growled, then excused themselves with a very friendly 'Too friendly...' voice from the other three and headed with Kaito hurrying after her towards the exit of the café. 'What the heck is she planning...?', he wondered.

Conan looked surprised at her as well, when she suddenly dragged him out of the café and began to grin. "Too bad I can't see that...", he said quietly to himself, and wondered what she'll do to him now.

She lead him to the next shop, which she knew was just next to the café. She had absently noted it when they walked into the café. Now, she dragged him through the entrance and straight to the colder areas of the shop.

Kaito could guess where this was leading to, so he struggled to get away from the evil girl.

"What? What did I now do to deserve that?", he whimpered.

"You were teasing Conan-kun again! I told you to stop it, but nooo...you just had to bother the little boy again, you baka!", she complained while she slid open the glass that had all the loose fishes under itself.

Kaito's eyes widened by the sight, but hadn't time to do something because Aoko had shoved his head already into the box where they were. He shrieked and wanted to get out of there, using his arms to push himself away from there and using his tail to get Aoko's hands away from his head and neck.

While Aoko was busy taking revenge for him, Conan wondered what she was doing. Well...she still tried to get control and keeping Kaito's head in the box, but his tail was disturbing pretty much, so she let go after a while. 'Stupid tail...', she thought, even though she also thinks that its kinda cute... but that wasn't important right now.

He got his head out of there as soon as she let him go and stumbled away from it, breathing heavily and looking warily over to the box. He let his ears fall and noticed how wet they were from the ice that was always around because the fishes needed to be frozen. He shivered shortly and then shook his head, throwing drops of water and ice all around himself, not caring if anything or anyone got wet. After he was done, his ears still hang down, as well as his tail now. He didn't notice and didn't care of how he was now the centre of attention of anyone in the shop.

Aoko grinned at him satisfied and had to admit that he looked kinda cute.. like a wet cat, and giggled at that thought. "So, I hope you're not gonna tease him again!", she warned him, "You know, what I'll do then."

He glared at he then, just his expression was changing, nothing else.

She just grinned at that reaction. "Let's get back to the others, I'm sure they already wonder, where we went off.", she said and looked at her watch.

He sighed and walked after her out of the shop, through all the staring people. His tail was following his steps all along. They got out and inside the café without getting much attention outside.

When Conan saw them coming back he took a look at Kaito. 'He seems to be wet... and ears and tail are out as well..', he noticed and wondered where they were. But from the thief's face, he could already tell, that he didn't liked it and chuckled.

Without so much of a comment and only with a glare towards Conan, he sat down again, ears still hanging down and tail around his waist. Ran looked strangely at him and wondered what her friend had done to the magician.

Conan grinned and turned to Aoko with a sweet smile. "Thanks Aoko-neechan.", he thanked her in a child's tone and played the innocent child again.

"I think it was for the greater good, Conan-kun!", she replied smiling and nodded.

"Maybe he'll stop teasing me now.", he said innocently and smiled.

"I hope so...", she said and glared next to her where Kaito glared at both of them, variantly.

He just grinned back at him. 'That just what you get.', he thought satisfied.

'I'll get you later...when Aoko isn't there to protect you...', he thought and focused his glare on the detective.

He ignored the thief and just continued to play the role of the innocent and lovely child.

The two girls looked in puzzlement at the two boys and wondered what was up with them.

Then, they finally ordered something to eat and drink, and after that Conan was quite happy about that break.

The ears and tail had vanished during the meal and Kaito was also happy to have something warm in his stomach.

"Ne, Ran-chan. Where we should go next?", Aoko asked Ran smiling, after they all finished eating.

"Hmmm...I think we already have enough clothes...", Ran said pondering. "What about looking for some accessories?", Sonoko filled out for Ran, beaming at the thought.

"Accessories?", Aoko said and smiled. "Sounds good.", she agreed.

Ran nodded as well and Kaito gave them a weary glance. "So, let's pay for our food and lets go!", Ran said and waved at the next waiter she saw.

After they paid they left the café and the girls looked around for the next accessories store they could find.

The boys followed silently, casting glares and grins at each other sometimes. They went into a store with costume jewellery, glassware, statues, bags and other things. The girls went at first to the jewellery and left the two boys standing there.

When they just left them behind Conan sighed. "Are they expecting us to wait here?", he sighed again and put his hands into his pockets.

"Well...they will be pretty mad at us, if we just disappear...so yeah I guess, they want us to wait here...or follow them.", Kaito said and sighed.

"Great... ", he sighed and looked around, "Too bad that their is no library around."

"Most unlikely...", he said and grinned slightly. "Guess we have no other chance but to wait for them, huh?"

"That sucks...", Conan muttered and sighed. "When will they stop with their shopping anyway..?"

"Who knows...?", Kaito said and raised an eyebrow. He checked his watch and sighed. "Late afternoon now...but I bet they could shop until the stores close..."

"Hm...that's for sure... I wonder how long they'll stay in there.", he wondered and sighed.

"Yeah...a half hour maybe?", he just guessed.

"That's already enough..", he sighed.

"Think this store has other...more interesting things?"

"I don't think their is anything interesting for guys."

"Most likely not, but looking wont hurt you, right?"

"Hm.. guess you're right. I think it'll be better than waiting here."

Kaito nodded and they went a little more into the shop.

In the shop they both looked around. 'At least I don't have to look around with Ran... she's probably stopping everywhere with the other girls.', he thought.

Kaito went along the boards with all the things girls would like. In front of one of them, he stopped and pulled something out of the baskets lying there. He instantly let them flew around in a glowing circle. On closer examination, they were translucent balls with light in them.

Conan just followed him and looked up to the shiny thing he was holding and got kinda fascinated by it.

Kaito noticed Conan's fascinated look and grinned. He sent the balls in an eight and other formations and noticed that other people had started to watch him as well. He remembered what effect balls had on him recently and was happy that he could at least juggle them without having the ears and tail pop out and loosing control.

While Kaito kept juggling, Conan kept staring at the balls, what he didn't really noticed himself. And suddenly his ears and tail popped out but he still stared at the juggling balls.

Kaito noticed that the balls had very well effect on Conan and grinned. 'Talk about fair play, dear Tantei-kun...', he thought.

Conan kept staring and blinked when a child suddenly grabbed his tail. "Huh?", he said and turned around and just noticed then that the stuff popped out again. 'Wait.. when..?', he thought and pulled his tail back and looked annoyed up to Kaito. "Stupid thief...", he mumbled.

Kaito just grinned down at him and let the balls vanish in the basket again. "You got a problem...?", he whispered.

"What do you think?", he grumbled and hoped that the cat-stuff would vanish soon.

He snickered and turned around, just to find the girls standing there as well. Ran and Sonoko had stared in awe and Aoko just sighed and shook her head. Kaito grinned foolishly at her.

He looked at the girls and sighed. 'Guess this was his revenge...', he thought annoyed.

Kaito looked up to Aoko as she approached the two. "We can't let you alone for even a few minutes, can we?", she asked with a raised brow. "Uhh...", Kaito said nervously and backed a little away from her.

Conan looked up the Kaito and grinned a little. He was sure she knew something to scare the thief and chuckled at that.

She grabbed one of the balls Kaito had used just now and threw it up and down in front of him, causing the thief's ears and tail to pop out as well. She grinned satisfied, put the ball away again and grabbed one of his ears. "Now, we better get out of here...", she said and dragged him out of the store, the others following amused.

Conan laughed at that silently and also followed them.

Out on the street, the girls got busy contemplating of where to go next and what to do with the two boys.

That the cat stuff popped out again, wasn't really his fault, but both boys got quite confused or surprised looks from the people.

They tried to make it look as if it was just some kind of cosplay, but since their ears would pick up every sound and twitch in that direction, it was quite difficult. Their tail sometimes twitched around as well and they had problems holding it still. Finally, the girls had decided to get the boys to a book store and head to a shop next to it.

When they stood in front of the book store Conan beamed. "Finally an interesting store..", he grinned and went into it.

"Yup!", Kaito agreed grinning and went after him in it. The girls were already in the other store and the two boys didn't notice the curious stare that followed them.


	6. Captured again

**Catboys**

**Chapter Six:** Captured...again

by **Phantom-Akiko** and **Vampire-KIDDO**

thanks to **hallow777** for beta-reading

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In the time between the upload of the fifth and this chapter, there were quite a lot of people busy drawing fanarts for this story (ourselves included) and we wanted to thank the other people, who drew fanarts a lot. You guys are awesome :D The links are all on my profile page.

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**hallow777 –** Your month wasn't the only one that was hectic^^° I was busy writing a lot of exams for my final exam (Abitur). You're always welcome to do that x3 We're always happy about fanarts xD

**Myvampirepuppy –** Will happen xD I had the same idea as well but it hadn't been the time for that yet. We'll involve it in the next chapter (it's already partly written)

**Mikayasha –** I feel honoured xD Glad you enjoy our fanfic so much.

**Elizabeth the Bathog –** Done^^ Sorry it took so long...

* * *

While the girls were enjoying themselves in the store next to them, the boys were busy with looking through books and telling each other their theories. Surprising for Conan, Kaito knew nearly all of the books he read as well, although his main interest lay somewhere else. Kaito was surprised that Conan has also read the Arsène Lupin novels and was quite a fan of them as well. But mostly, they talked about the newer books.

They time went over fast and after a while Conan looked on his watch. "Hm... we've spend already quite a lot of time here...Maybe we should look for the girls? We're done here anyway, right?", he said and looked up to the thief.

At the detective's remark, he looked at his watch as well. "Oh yeah...but I bet they're still shopping...maybe we could get them to stop by now...", he said and put the book away he still held in his hands.

"Maybe, if we're lucky.", he said and grinned a little. "Let's go then...", he said and left the shop with him, and didn't noticed that somebody watched him and Kaito all the time while they were in the story until now.

They went along to the store next to them where the girls were, but noticed something in the alley between the buildings. Some sort of smell, that instantly stimulated their cat senses in a very nice way, so they felt drawn into the alley. After they took a few steps into the darkness, they felt something pressed against their mouths and realized what it was. 'Chloroform...', they thought panicked at the same time and fell to the ground a few seconds later.

Both of them blacked out after that and didn't noticed anything of what happened next. Two men dragged the boys into a big van, which stood in the same alley. The van drove away and stopped after a while. They were at the building Conan and Kaito have been dragged to once already, but escaped that time. They dragged them into the building and put them in some kind of cage in one of their science laboratories. Before that, they put black collars around their neck, because it'd be harder to do that, when they're awake.

When Kaito came to his senses again, he felt the usual sickness of having breathed chloroform. 'What the hell...', he thought, still lying on the ground and trying to get a clear sight, because everything was blurry. He could remember being in front of the alley and that there was a nice smell, but everything after that until he felt something in front of his mouth was gone, just blank. He sat himself up and surveyed the area around him. He also noticed that the detective was next to him, still asleep. Everything else seemed like a laboratory to him, but his mind wasn't awake enough to notice the other little facts.

Conan slowly woke up after Kaito. He slowly opened his eyes and felt headache and groaned. 'What happened...?', he asked himself and slowly sat up, and looked around, still feeling not right in his head. 'What is this... a laboratory...?', he wondered and noticed the thief then.

Kaito noticed a movement next to him and looked down to see the now awake detective. His mind then registered the fact that Conan had something black around his neck. 'What is that...?', he wondered. Then, his eyes focused on the staves around them and looked around. 'What? We're imprisoned or something?'

After he felt a bit better he tried to think clearly. "Oi... do you know where we are..?", he asked then, and still didn't notice that something was around his neck, nor around Kaito's neck.

"Not sure...seems to be some kind of laboratory...", he said and looked around again. "But what is also worrisome is that black thing around your neck...", he said, while he didn't notice that he had one of these as well. He reached to the detective's neck, but as his hands brushed against the black painted metal, he felt a strong electric shock and quickly got his hand away from it.

"What? Around my neck?", wondered and Kaito already tried to remove it. When he quickly got his hand away he looked with raised brows at him."What is it?", he asked curious.

"Not sure...looks awfully like some kind of collar...and it gave me an electric shock.", he said and held his hand.

"What? A shock?",he said and looked to the thief's neck, "You have one, too...", he said then. "could it be that we got kidnapped again,by those scientists..?"

He tried to look down as he mentioned that, but didn't dared to touch it again. He looked back at the detective and sighed. "Possible...I don't like this.", he growled.

"Me neither...", he said and sighted. "They probably saw us with the cat-stuff and recognized us.", he said and looked around, "This time it'll sure be harder to escape then last time..."

"Yeah...", he said and chuckled. "The last time was really too easy...", he said and concentrated on the cage they were in again. He crawled over to the door with the opening and tried to open it. He was surprised that he still had most of his tools with him, but only the ones he hid really good. It took a while for him to get the door open, but when the door opened and he slipped out of the cage, a shock ran through his whole body and he shortly cried out and fell back in the cage, panting heavily.

He just could watch him, and wondered if he was always carrying those tools around. When he heard the sudden cry he blinked and looked over to him, when he fall back. "A shock again?", he asked surprised.

After he had calmed down again and sat up again, he nodded and looked worried down again. "But not just the hand, but the whole body this time...I didn't even touch anything!", he complained.

"Well... seems like we can't get out of this cage then..not with those collars...", he sighted, "Just great."

"And I'm not trying to get them off again...once was more than enough!", he said and sighed. Then, they heard a sound in the distance, just like footsteps on metal. They looked around and found a door next to all the tables with scientific stuff on them. The footsteps became louder and the door opened to reveal a huge man in a white coat, holding some kind of remote.

Conan kept quite when he heard the sound as well and turned to the direction, it came from. 'Probably one of those scientists...', he thought and stayed calm, wondered for what this remote was. "What do you wanna do with us?", he asked then.

The man gave them a wicked grin and marched towards the cage. "It's not like we have stopped the experiments, just because you two managed to escape. We're not done with you yet.", answered them a tenor voice and they soon found him standing at the still open door. "Ah, I see we haven't found every tool on you.", he said and looked to the teenager, "We will have to check that...at least these collars work...", he said and pressed a button on the remote, holding it to the both of them, then kneed down to reach out and grab Conan at the back of his clothes and pulling him out of the cage. Before Kaito could react, however, the man had already pressed the remote again and Kaito felt the shock again as he tried to get out.

'So it's them from last time...great...', he thought and kept looking at the man and blinked when he was pulling him out. Conan tried to refuse but couldn't really do something and dithered. "Oi! Let me go!", he yelled at him.

"Unlikely...", the man said unemotional and tucked the detective under his arm. "And if you try to flee...this remote allows me to give you an electric shock, just like your friend there had just experienced. You will get one by passing various exits as well, so flight is as well as impossible.", the man told them and shut the door closed again. He marched off with Conan and went to the door.

Conan looked angry up to the man and growled something, but gave up refusing, though, it wouldn't help anyway. 'I don't like the idea of new experiments...', he thought and looked around, just seeing more people and white coats.

The man brought him into a room with more scientists, male and female. He set Conan on one of the empty tables and went away out of the door again. A few of the scientists gathered around the table and looked at him.

Conan tried to look around when they set him on the table and couldn't see anything more when they gathered around him. 'Gosh...I'm glad Haibara isn't doing anything like that to me...', he thought and glared at them. They discussed something and held suddenly a fish in front of his face, which made the ears and the tail pop out again. He blinked when he saw it and sweat-dropped. 'Damn it...', he mumbled.

Kaito looked up when he heard footsteps again and the same man entered again, this time without Conan. 'So, he's going to get me now, huh?', he thought and glared at the man from where he sat. The man pushed the button on the remote again and opened the door. With more resistance as he had with Conan, the man grabbed him around that collar and Kaito had trouble breathing. 'Damn that idiot...', he thought as he was hauled out of the cage as well. Kaito noticed that the man was quite strong since he was able to drag him off without that much resistance. 'I would like to flee...I bet it's possible but with what that guy said, we need more information, damnit!', he thought as he was dragged through a corridor. A short time later, he was dragged into the same room in which Conan already was and he was seated on a different table.

After the cat stuff popped all out again they began to pull on ears and tail, which made Conan shiver and make ears and tail twitching after they let go. "Stop that!", he yelled at them, but they didn't really reacted and just took some notes. After that they began to ring with a bell in different directions, which made his ears twitch in those directions, and Conan just sighted annoyed.

Kaito couldn't see the detective, because the scientists blocked his sight, but he guessed that he was in the centre of all the attention on the next table. Then, he noticed that the other people had joined around his table and he suddenly saw a fish in front of his face. His eyes went wide and he jumped up with a loud scream to get away. He found hold on one of the thicker cables that hang from the ceiling, his ears on full alert and his tail wound itself around the cable. The people looked confused up at him, not having expected such a reaction.

Conan just let them do with that stupid bell, whatever they wanted to do, but got quiet annoyed after a while, and shut his ears when he heard a scream all of sudden. 'What the heck was that?'he thought but couldn't see something, because of the scientist. Then he found some catnap in front of his face and hold his hands still. 'No.. I'm not gonna catch it, I'm not gonna catch it, I'm not..', he thought again and again but lost control again when they waved around with it and tried slowly to catch it.

They had problems getting him down after that as long as they hold the fish there, but one of them pressed another button of the remote and he felt a short wave travel through his body and he soon found himself on the table again, as he had lost his grip on the cable. He still tried to get as much space between himself and the fish and they finally put it away, after they had noted down something. He was curious what they had written, when he suddenly felt hands on his tail and he stiffened up. But other hands pulled on his ears and tail to see how they connect and interact with the human physiology, that he could keep as stiff as he wanted since that sometimes hurt as well. But damn, it felt really weird. Then, they went on to test his other senses. They also tested his hearing with a bell and it was quite annoying since his ears kept twitching in that direction. They also seemed to check his eyesight by shining a light into his eyes and nearly blinding him. They still seemed to be happy with the results they got and wrote them down as well.

They wrote something down, while Conan tried to catch that catnap thing. They noticed that he didn't really had control of himself any more and when they waved it more Conan suddenly jumped at it with a "Nya~" sound and played with it for a while until the put it away. Conan looked disappointed into the direction where he saw the catnap last and blinked confused when he snapped back. 'Geez... I lost control again...', he thought and sighted. Suddenly, one of the scientist began to scratch him behind his ears and before he noticed what was going on he purred and leaned into the hand, losing control again and waving around with his tail, while his ears dropped because he really enjoyed that stroking.

As Kaito saw a ball rolling past him, he tried to ignore it as much as he could. They rolled the ball past him again and again and his eyes never left it until he suddenly snatch at it and held the ball in his hands, grinning like an idiot. The scientists raised their eyebrows and one of them went away to get a catnap, which was not that easy for him to catch. His tail followed the thing's movements, as he tried to get it and he had let go of the ball as well. When they finally put the cat nip away, he was disappointed, but then they held something under his nose, that sent waves of pleasure through his body and he totally relaxed until he was just lying there, dazed. Then, they started to stroke him behind his ears and sent even more in his dazed state.

Conan relaxed and lew down, waving his tail only slowly and still purring, until they stopped, what he didn't really noticed at first. They took a few other notes while Conan kept dazing. After a while, the tail and the ears disappeared again, which was noted by the others again and checked some other things, while he was still and dazing. Then they hold some good smelling scent under his nose, which made the ears and the tail just pop out again and they checked some stuff also. When they also were ready with that they discussed something and gave him some kind of drug and also water so he gulped it down immediately and also got awake. He looked around confused and remember what happened and was shocked that he just gulped something from them. "Oi! What was that?!", he asked but the just shocked him when he was getting louder which made him cry out shortly and be quiet. 'Damn collar...', he thought.

Kaito didn't even notice when they stopped and just waited for quite a while. Kaito's tail waved around lazily and when he slowly came to his senses again, the ears and tail had disappeared again. He saw some of the scientists writing down something and discussing something, while he got annoyed at quickly sat up again. As they noticed that, they did something he couldn't see and he found himself getting dazed again, when he smelt that scent again. He absently noted that the ears and tail were out yet again, but couldn't bring himself to care. He felt someone gripping his nose shut and as he wanted to protest, he felt a pill being shoved into his mouth, together with some water and out of reflex, he quickly gulped down whatever it was before it could get into his airway. After that, he felt a cold shower of dread driving down his spine and it definitely nothing to do with him being cold. 'Damn...what did they just give me?', he wondered. Absently, he noted that one of them was walking away from his table to the door, but he couldn't bring himself to care much. Just as he heard him talking loudly too the others, asking if they were ready, we looked back at him, worried. The others nodded and with a click, he pulled the room into darkness, which didn't last long and he could see due to the little remaining light enough that he could see out the whole room and every face. Glancing into one of the glass cabinets, he saw that his eyes reflected light just like real cat's eyes.

Conan wondered what was going on now when suddenly the lights were turned off. He looked around and wondered why he still could see everything pretty well, he blinked as he saw his own eyes reflecting light, and just then the turned the light on again. 'Okay, that definitely did not happen before...', he thought,'What on earth did they give me..?', he asked himself, when they suddenly took of his glassed and shined with light into it, which made him move back and shut his eyes. When the stars in front of his eyes slowly vanished and they stopped taking notes again, they inspected his mouth more closely and pressed some substance against his teeth. When they put it away he looked at it and thought that'd be some kind of plaster but wondered what was that for. He slowly touched his teeth and blinked when he noticed that they got much sharper.

When the light went on again, his eyes needed a little time to adjust themselves again. The scientists used his time of confusion and put something in his mouth. Kaito wanted instantly to spill it out, but they just shoved his jaw up and opened his mouth again, pulling that what-ever-it-was out again and inspecting it, nodding. For as much as he could see of it, his teeth should not leave imprints like that and he traced his teeth with his tongue and started, when they were all sharper and he had even fangs, although they were not that much longer than before. 'Oookay...that wasn't there before. What the heck did they give me?', he wondered.

Conan slowly began to panic when he noticed that this stuff, they gave was not good for him at all and just began to daze again when he smelled that scent again and fell asleep soon. The man from before picked him up and brought him into the cage from before, and also could shut it, because Conan was still sleeping. They're was probably also something in it to make him sleep, so it's no wonder.

They let Kaito stay a little longer and he watched as the detective was brought away. Suddenly, he felt one of these electric shocks again and his head swirled around to look confused at the scientists, who by now had backed away a little and were all crowding around one scientists, who held one of these remotes. Upon him pressing another button, he felt a shock again and looked more irritated at them. 'What...? It's not like I did something wrong...', he thought and was shocked again, which made him a little more angrier. 'Ah...testing the reaction to danger? No wonder they sent Tantei-kun away...good thing to know that they wont do things like this to a child...' But that didn't mean that he liked this as well and as a got another shock, he snarled at them and they started to back away more. Another shock and he forgot his own common sense started charging towards them, growling. That was around the time they put him to sleep as well and carried him off to put him next to Conan into the cage again.

Conan didn't noticed when they brought the thief to him and just continued sleeping until he woke up after a while and yawned, stretching a little bit like a cat would which made him blink. 'Wait a second...', he thought and quickly sat up like he should and noticed that tail and ears were still there. 'That stuff should be vanished already!', he thought, and let his ears drop in frustration. Then he noticed that the thief was also in here and that he had the tail and the ears still as well, so he shook him a little to wake him up. "Oi, Kid! Wake up!", he said. 'At least none of those mad scientists is here any more...', he thought.

Kaito needed more time to wake up this time and he muttered something as he felt someone shaking him. His eyes fluttered open and he looked dazed at the detective. "Tantei-kun...?", he murmured and tried to get his sight clear again. His shook his head a little, yawned and stretched his whole body before resting in the comfortable position again. He blinked at what he just did and noted that his tail was still there. "Great...they did something to make the things stay longer out...just great.", he muttered and let his head fall back to the ground with a thud.

Conan nodded, sighed as well, "I guess they did the same things to you they did to me... even giving you that weird drug... whatever that was...," he muttered and looked out, "We gotta get away from here, or next time will be even worse...," he sighed and shivered at that thought.

Well, Kaito was awake now, ears on full alert, "That again...? Geez, no thanks! Next thing we know that we're always like this...but these stupid collars are really a pain in the ass...I guess we need one of those remotes and then a very good sense of direction...which we both have, I believe."

"Nya, first we...," he stopped talking and blinked at what he was just saying. "Great, I can't even talk normal anymore!," he complained and swore in his thoughts, trying to calm down a little. "First we should think of some plan, getting one of those remotes, without getting hurt more.", he said then and was glad that there was no 'Nya' in this sentence.

"I can do that...," Kaito said grinning and raised an eyebrow at the 'Nya', "They wouldn't even notice it..."

"That'd be great," he said at that and grinned, "So we just need one of them get over here again, so you can take it away...," he suggested and contemplated the idea.

"Nya...", Kaito said nodding and looked up in surprise that he had let that slip as well. He groaned and shook his head, "Well, to get back on what I wanted to say...we need some plan to take them down...," he said and let his ears drop, "It wouldn't get us anywhere if we just escaped and they catch us with that good smelling stuff again...," he said and sighed.

He sighed and nodded in agreement, "When we escape again they'll search for us again, for sure... they even know the weak-points we have because of them now..."

"Don't you have some good connections in the police force?," he wondered, "I'm quite sure you have more than me, at least," he said grinning, "We could send them here..."

Conan thought about it and nodded. "Nya, I do have," he said, and just ignored the 'nya'-part. "But we don't have any cellphones here, so we first have to get away from here or find a phone around here."

"So we need to wait for them to come here...I doubt they would take us out of here, if he just make some ruckus..."

"Well...we just need one of them get near you, nya? So you can take the one of remotes...," he said thoughtful.

"But I have to get out of the cage for that...or I just get a shock again...," he said and raised an eyebrow.

"So they have to drag you out of here for some reason...but still I don't know what kind of reason...," he said and sighed again.

"I guess we have to wait for them to get us out for experimenting again...," he sighed, but kept on thinking.

"They wouldn't let us out for something else, would they?," he asked with raised brows.

"They would surely bring the food into the cage, if they give us something...," he said and got an idea. "Nyaaa...but they can't get us a toilet in here...," he said and grinned.

As Conan heard that, he thought about that and grinned as well. "Nya, so they have to get us to a toilet," he said, "That could even work!"

"Nya...just getting one to notice that would be difficult...if I recall correctly, this room is not directly connected to the main corridor..."

"Hm...are there any cameras or something like that?," he asked and tried to look around the cage.

"There are two in this room and that one..," he said and pointed to it, "...is the only one directed at us. But I luckily can't see any kind of microphone in this room."

"Hm... so if we damage or break one of them somehow, they should get down here," he said and looked to the cameras.

Kaito searched for something useful but came up empty handed. "Damn...they got my cardgun and my other stuff..."

He checked himself and looked at the thief again. "Seems like they didn't discover that my shoes and watch aren't normal...and also the other stuff...," he said and wondered if he could kick a ball to the cameras through the bars.

"Well...wouldn't really suspect something like that on a kid, nya?", he asked and grinned. The 'nyas' were getting annoying and to a point, where he needed to ignore them for his own sake.

"Nya, I just wonder if I can kick a ball through the bars...," he said with raised brows also ignored that damn 'nya'.

Kaito laughed slightly. "Maybe you can even break them...but I bet the collar would still be activated, anyway..."

He thought about that and nodded. "Well, that's right. I could already make a tree fall on the medium power...," he said and grinned, "I'm sure it'll break the bars at full power and also break one of the cameras."

"Uhh...just a question...what power level do you use against me usually?," he asked warily and raised an eyebrow.

"Uhm... mostly the low level," he said and grinned, "But sometimes I also use a higher level," he said and turned his shoes on full power.

"Okay...nice to know...," he said warily and looked over to him.

He grinned at him and focused on one of the cameras and after he pushed the button on his belt, a soccer-ball came out and he kicked it with full-power to the camera, breaking the bars and also the camera.

Kaito gulped as he saw the power coming from the shoes, "Nyaaa...I'm kind of happy that you don't use that against me..."

"Nya, you should be," he grinned at him and looked to the broken camera... well, at what was left of it, "I guess we just have to wait now...," he said and after a while he could already hear steps and his ears twitched in that direction.

The man that came into the room was the same as before and he looked quite furiously at them.

"Sorry for breaking your camera but Niisan has to go to the toilet and we didn't know how else we could get your attention...," he said in his innocent child's voice and looked at him with big eyes.

The man still glared at the detective for a short time and looked away to glare at Kaito instead. The man snorted and pressed the remote and Kaito found the man's hand on his collar again and was quickly dragged out of the broken bars. As the man pressed the button on the remote again, Kaito waited a few seconds later to steal the remote straight out of the man's hands. He grinned and managed to twist out of his grip. He quickly ran towards the cage again and pressed the button, freeing Conan in the process. The man, having realised what was happening, called someone on his phone.

Conan watched the whole thing and was glad when it worked and hurried out of the cage, looking at the man on the phone, "We better get outta here fast...," he said and looked around for an exit, "Is there a button on that remote to get us free from these collars?," he asked so that they would have less trouble getting away.

"Nyaaa...," he said nodding while they ran past the cursing man who was now following them.

"Wait a moment...,"he said, holding the remote to the detective's collar and pressing a different button. He was glad as the collar gave a click and opened. He used that on his collar as well and they quickly got rid of the collars.

"Finally they're off!," he said relieved and they continued running, leaving the collars behind. "Now let's get out of here...," he said and looked around for a door or exit, or just anything they could escape through. They ran past several surprised scientists, who yelped and hurried to the side when they nearly bumped into them or took a leap over their heads. From a side corridor they could already hear loud footsteps sounding through the bare walls and they hurried even more. But with a quick jump up an air duct and them crawling down one level and landing in a different corridor, they managed to escape the angry mob of guards.

When they ran through yet a different corridor, Kaito saw a window that should lead out in the open, "Maybe, we can get out through there!," he said and pointed to said window already moving slower.

Conan looked to the window and nodded then running to the window and looked out, "Hm...seems to be pretty high...but I think we'll land safely anyway...," he said and looked to him.

Kaito looked down as well, "Well, I've jumped from higher buildings...", he said and grinned.

"I know...," he said and remembered when the thief fell down the building at the last heist and landed safe, "Are you going first or shall I?"

"Uuhh...I'll go first in case something happens and I have to catch you...," he said and opened the window.

"Nya...," he said and looked to thief and waited for him to jump.

A second later, Kaito was already out of the window, free falling down. Surprisingly he only needed a short roll to be safely on his feet again. He looked up to the detective and noticed it was really quite high.

Conan looked down to him and jumped right after him and landed safe on his feet as well.

By now, Kaito could see many people in white coats hurrying through the hallways and searching for them, "Let's go before they spot us...," he muttered down to the detective.

Conan saw them too and nodded to the thief and they both hurried away from the building, "Where should we go now?," he asked while running.

Kaito looked around and saw a little forest, "There for now...we can try to reach civilisation later."

"Nya...," he said, instead of an 'okay' and ran with him into the forest.

It was really quiet in there, but they still ran through it, trying to find the next normal house or street.

Now, Conan was quite happy about his better sight, so he wouldn't run into any tree and after a while they finally found a street again.

In the distance, they could already see some larger houses and guessed that it could be Tokyo. Too bad they had both taken a different way the first time around.

"Let's get back home and I'll tell the police to go there...," he said and walked back.

"I'd appreciate that...," he said and walked along side with him. They marched over the street and towards the houses. Half an hour later, they were already surrounded by smaller houses. Just the fact that neither of them had money was the reason why they didn't take a bus back home.

Soon they were finally at Agasa's. They didn't go to the agency, because he still had to call the police as Shinichi, "You wanna come in too?," he asked before ringing the bell.

"Would be nice...," he said and waited as well. They were just glad that the ears and tail had vanished during their journey. Since they had never lasted that long, they guessed that the pill they took might have affected that as well. A few minutes later, the professor opened the door, surprised to see them both there. He first turned a questioning look towards Kaito, but then looked down to Shinichi.

"Where were you? Ran-kun was really worried about you. You just vanished on one of her shopping trips, right? With another boy called Kaito...?," he asked and raised an eyebrow at the teen next to Conan, who just smiled shortly and nodded.  
Conan looked up to the professor and sighed, "I already guessed that...I'll go to her later, but right now I need to use your phone," he said.

"Uh...sure," he said and moved around to let them in, "You know where it is..."

"Thanks...," he nodded and hurried in to the phone and dialled the number of the police and changed his bow-tie to his own voice. When someone picked up he explained that there was big building nearby the city, where scientist are doing illegal biological project.

The police only asked for more directions and then sent several officers to the building to arrest the people.

He hung up the phone after a while and sighed, "I just hope we'll never have to deal with those guys again..."

"Yeah...but we should also make sure the girls know that we're okay..."

"Right, the girls...," he said and sighed, and took the phone again, "You can call Aoko after me...," he said and dialled the number of Rans cellphone.

When her phone suddenly rang as she was cleaning the agency, worried about Conan, Ran was pretty surprised and picked up right away. "Moshi-moshi...?," she said and hoped it was good news about Conan.

"Hello Ran-neechan," he greeted her, "Sorry for making you worried. I'm at hakase's right now. I'll explain everything to you later, okay?"

"Conan-kun! You're okay! I'm so glad!," she said and sighed in relief, "O-okay...just come home soon, okay?"

"Yes, I'll be back home soon, don't worry. See you later,", he said and hang up again and gave Kaito the phone, "Here, you can call Aoko-neechan now."

"Okay...," he said and wondered why he used that connotation, since there was no one around who didn't know. He shrugged it off and just called Aoko's number, waiting for her to pick it up.

Aoko was at home, cooking for her and her dad. She was also worried about Kaito because he just vanished with little Conan-kun and she couldn't get a hold of him on his cellphone either. "Moshi-Moshi?," she said when she picked up the phone.

"Hey, Aoko! It's me! Just wanted to tell you that I'm okay," he said grinning.

She blinked when she heard his voice, "Kaito?! Baka! Where have you been? We were worried!," she said then.

"Ehh...I'll tell you later, alright? I'll be home in a bit..."

She sighed and nodded, "Alright..So I'll see you tomorrow at school?"

"Yes, and Aoko...? Please DON'T come with any f-fish, okay? And no playthings!," he literally begged her.

She was surprised and thought about that. "I'll think about it," she said and grinned.

"No, please...," he said worried, "I'll come by even today, so you wont have to be mad at me for not telling, okay?"

She sighed and nodded, "Fine I'll see you in a few minutes then, right?"

"Few minutes?," he asked surprised, "Ah...uh...okay! I'll hurry!," he said and hung up, "I gotta be at Aoko's in a few minutes or she will make the ears and tail appear again," he explained to the detective and then hurried out of the house, "Bye!," he called back at him and hurried to get to the Nakamori residence.

She wanted to answer but he already hung up and she sighed, and went back to her cooking again.  
Conan just looked surprised at him and watched him run out of the house and sighed. Then he looked up to the professor and smiled apologetic, "Sorry, I better hurry, too. I'll tell you everything later," he said and went to the door as well. Conan soon arrived at the agency and said, "I'm back!," as he came in.

After a few leaps over rooftops, he was finally in front of her door and ringing the bell. He was still panting a little, waiting for her to open the door.

When the bell rang she went to the door and saw Kaito as expected, "Now, where were you?," she asked.  
"Well...you remember those scientists, who did the weird cat stuff to me? They kidnapped us again and wanted to continue their experiments on us...but we escaped again after a while. The bad thing is, that they gave us a pill, that made the ears and tail stay out even longer and we also got other cat abilities as well...," he explained to her in a rush.

She listened to him and raised one brow at the end, "So you were there again? And what do you mean by other abilities?," Aoko asked.

"Well...shining cat eyes in the night, better vision as well...and my teeth got sharper. Like fangs and so...we haven't discovered more, yet..."

"Hm...," she looked a little worried at him, "But you're okay, right?"

"As long as you wont make those things appear, yes," he said and sighed.

"I'll try," she said and grinned at him, "But I'm glad nothing else happened to you."

"It...wasn't very nice, but well...," he said and sighed.

"And the same happened to Conan-kun?," she asked then.

"Yeah...exactly the same...we were even in the same cage...," he said and smiled in a sarcastic way.

She got a little shocked at that, "They put you in a cage?"

"Yeah...reeeally fun, you know?"

"Could you break the lock? You're good at that... after breaking into the girls changing room a few times..."

"It was easy, yes...but they gave us stupid collars that gave us an electric shock when we passed the bars...and we couldn't remove them..."

"You with a collar?," she asked and raised one brow, "I can imagine that this was really terrible for someone like you."

"You have no idea...," he said groaning.

"Well, at least you came back safe," she sighed.

"Yeah, and we called the police and let them know about these guys...I hope they go to prison soon."

"That would be good. I'm sure you and Conan-kun don't want to go there again."

"No...next time we go there, they will make it so we are always like this...," he said and rolled his eyes.

She looked at him and giggled, "Well, I'll try to tease you with fish less," she said and smiled.

He sighed, "Thanks...also with the toys?"

"Hm...I'll think about that..," she grinned.

"But...Aoko! The ears and tail will stay longer now..."

"But they'll still vanish after some time," she grinned.

"Some time? They'll only vanish after hours of staying calm, most likely," he complained.

"It's not that hard for you, is it?," she giggled.

"Not hard? You're kidding again, right...?," he asked and sighed.

"But I really wanna see those ears again~," she pouted.

He glared at her of a while and then sighed, "Fine, but only when we're alone and when I don't have to be anywhere in the next few hours, okay?"

"Yay, thank you!," she cheered happily and looked on her watch, "You wanna go home now? It's already pretty late..."

He sighed at her reaction and then nodded, "Yeah...it is. Mum will also be worried about me..."

"Hm.. yes, probably. Better get home quickly..," she said.

"Okay, see ya!," he called and hurried off home.

-

Kaito's mum already cooked dinner but put the rest aside so Kaito could heat it up. She just wondered what he was doing again and where, because it was already really late.

When he entered the house, he could already smell food and so he went into the kitchen, "Hi mum, I'm back again!," he greeted her.

She turned around immediately and went to him, "Kaito! You're finally back! Where were you?," she asked.

He hesitated, "I...was back at that laboratory...," he said.

"What?," she asked a little shocked, "Why? Did they kidnap you again?"

"Yeah...with some weird, good smelling stuff...," he said rather nervously.

"And are you okay?," she asked and was quite worried.

"Well...just a few more 'extras'...," he said, rolling his eyes and told his mother what they did to them this time.

She listened to him and sighed, "My poor boy... ," she said after the explanation and was sorry for him.

"Well...at least these people will surely be behind bars soon..."

"Yes, its good that you told the police. If not they could catch you again anytime."

"Yeah...stupid smell...they wouldn't have had a chance otherwise," he said and growled.

"Hm.. you better get to bed now. It's already really late, and I'm sure you're tired after so much trouble."

"Eh...okay," he agreed and went upstairs to get into his bed.

She looked after him and was just glad that he was back safe.

-

In the agency, Ran was also waiting for her little charge and wondered if everything was alright with him.

Soon Conan was back at the agency as well and opened the door, "I'm back!"

A desperate Ran greeted him and flung her arms around him, "Conan-kun! Oh my god, are you okay?," she asked worried.

He blushed as he felt Ran's arms around him, "Y-Yes, I guess...," he mumbled.

She held him a little away from her, still looking worried at him, "What had happened...?," she asked, sounding a little lost.

"Well...we got kidnapped by those scientists again...," he explained.

"Wha-," she said surprised, "You got...but are you really okay?," she asked again.

He nodded again, "I'm fine but... they gave something that causes those ears and the tail to stay out longer. And some other changes...," he added.

"Oh my...," she said worried, "What other changes...?"

"Beside the ears and tail staying out longer, also better eye sight and sharper teeth... don't know if something else changed as well."

"They will stay longer?," she asked surprised, "Do you know how long?"

"I'm not sure... I have to keep calm for a while and then they disappear... but I don't know how long exactly."

"Well...," she said and sighed, "Do you know if there's a possibility of changing back? ...not that I want it, but...," she said with a slight blush.

Conan blinked at the last sentence and blushed a little as well, "I don't know a way to change back...maybe there is one, but I don't know anything about that."

"Ah...I see...," she said and tried not to sound too happy about it.

He looked at her and asked himself if she was now happy about that or sad but just sighed, "Well, I think I'll to bed now...a lot happened and I'm tired."

"Of course, sleep well!," she said smiling and stood up again.

"Yes, thanks. See you tomorrow then," he said and left the room and went off into his own room where he went to bed and fell fast asleep.


End file.
